The 74th Annual Hunger Games: Etherised
by Teleryn
Summary: Sequel to The Others. Ash, Flint, Logan, Dan and Thorn were among those who died during the 74th Annual Hunger Games. But as darkness fades and light emerges, a question arises: who, in a world equally as new and scary as the arena, are the real victors?
1. White Light

**The 74****th**** Annual Hunger Games: Etherised**

**Chapter One**

**White Light**

**Author's Note****: Hello HG readers, long time no see :^) Hopefully you'll have read 'The Others' before starting this, otherwise you might wonder what the hell has been going on… I loved it so much, I couldn't wait to do a sequel. Except then A-levels happened, hence the month-long delay. But **_**never mind**_**! You're here now, so off we go. **

**Legal****: …I've got to do this all over again? REALLY? **

**Logan**

I've never had an underwater dream before. But then, what I experience would be better termed a nightmare.

I'm already a long way from the surface, of a huge ocean in which there is nothing but deep, deep blue, for endless stretches of miles. My own hands are around my neck, and I look down and wonder why they're there. Below me there is an even darker blue, turning dark green and then black. I've lost all sense of weight, direction and dimension.

It's not my hands around my neck now. Another face is suddenly there, another body, and he has a murderous glint in his eyes as he throttles me. Who is he? Where have I seen his face before? I know that I know him, and yet I don't know who it is I'm supposed to know.

And then it's too late: I'm still conscious, and can see the light shafts disappearing as I sink into unceasing darkness. I don't know what's waiting for me underneath, but whatever it is feels terrifyingly real; I can feel the density of the water, feel it going down my throat and blocking my lungs. My body thrashes about, but in slow motion. I want to move faster but physically can't. And

White light. White lights. White lights ensconced in the ceiling. Wait. A ceiling? Where am I? Where did the sea go? Where did my killer go?

Then it all floods back: killer; Marvel; Careers; training; metal tree; tributes; reaping; games. I died.

I sit up straight like someone's swung a hammer into my spine. Then I instantly wish I hadn't, because the room - or what I can see of it - spins, and so I flop back down on my pillows…_I have pillows! Oh sweet luxury!_

I cough and splutter as my eyes try to produce something clearer than blurry, fuzzy shapes. My neck cramps with pain, and I realise I'm in a neck brace. Wow…what else is wrong with me…my left arm is in a sling, but I can stretch out my right arm with relative ease. I feel around my immediate surroundings: a metal box. A rail. Some buttons…Oh, oh, oh I shouldn't have pressed that, I'm…

"Help," I squeak, as the top half of my bed tips back to an angle no human being should have to endure. From my left I hear a grunt of pain, before a thin arm reaches over and presses another button to reverse the process. Eventually, I'm sitting up, and my eyes present a clearer scene to me:

Everything here is white, from the walls to the floors to the other beds. And in these eight other beds are young people, in thin white gowns under white blankets. They all look frail and weak, but very much alive. The tributes are alive.

"Don't worry, Logan, someone'll come along and explain everything to you soon enough."

With some difficulty, I manoeuver my upper body to the left, to find my partner from District Seven, Jackal. My jaw slackens instinctively.

"Jackal…? But, but you're dead."

"Well, that would make sense if I wasn't sitting here talking to you. And yet here I am. And now here you are."

She grimaces for a second, one arm draped over her pelvis, and another underneath her back, which, like mine, is propped up to a sitting position.

"My kidneys," she says by way of explanation. "Maybe you saw it, maybe you didn't, but I got nicked in each one. I keep asking the doctors to increase my morphine, but they're refusing to budge."

"…This is a hospital?"

"No, Logan, it's a garden centre. Of course it's a hospital."

"Sorry, you're right. I'm being stupid." Jackal sighs.

"No, don't worry about it. I'm just tetchy, y'know, because I haven't left this bed since I came out of surgery…however many hours ago."

"Surgery? Have I been…there too?" The thought makes me shiver with fear, irrational as it is; after all, if I have, then there's nothing to be afraid of, because it's already happened. Jackal nods, eyes closed. She looks really uncomfortable. Granted, I hardly feel like leaping out of bed and tap-dancing around the room, but my neck doesn't feel too sore unless I swallow or cough, and there's only a dull ache in my left shoulder. I recall the knife wound, and then forget about it.

"Did you all arrive at the same time?" I ask, casting my gaze around the room. I'm at the end of my row, but if I lean forward a small fraction, I can see the tribute from Six on Jackal's left, his own small neck swathed in thick bandages. I remember watching him get his throat slit. The District Five male is the last on our side, tucked up and fast asleep. I can't see anything immediately wrong with him.

"Looks like Five got out lucky, somehow," I say to Jackal. She glances at him, then looks back at me and gravely shakes her head.

"Who, Tristan? Under those blankets are a load of bandages across his chest. Got skewered through the ribs."

Opposite me is the boy from Ten, the one who had a limp. Next to him is, what was his name, Dyon, from Four, who's bandaged up around the liver. The girl and boy from Nine look like they're in especially bad shape: Jackal tells me she received an arrow to the head, and he got speared through the chest. I shudder.

The last girl, from Three, also dons a neck brace. The image of Cato's hands around her delicate jaw, snapping her head 180 degrees to the left, flashes across my mind. I suddenly want to be back asleep.

In between waves of pain, Jackal reels off their names for me: Mailo, Tristan, Kiko, Dyon, Ember, Archidamus ("Arc for short," he clarifies) and Perdita. Only then does it occur to me that all of these tributes died in the bloodbath, right at the beginning of the Games. Which means I have missed a fundamental question here:

"_How_ are we still alive?"

"I might be able to shed some light on that issue."

From beyond our nine beds, a swooshing sound echoes out from a pair of glass automatic doors. I see a pristine white coat, white gloves, and a face that looks like it's seen too much of the world: a doctor.

She walks efficiently over to my bed and extends a hand.

"Dr. Melody Smithson. It's good to see you're awake, Tom. May I call you that, Tom?"

"Actually, most people know me as - "

"Well, Tom, I understand this must all be very overwhelming for you and difficult to understand, but before going into that I just want to make sure you're fully functioning. Arm, please."

Like a mine diffusal expert, she takes my blood pressure, examines my ears, flashes a light into my eyes, puts a tongue depressor to my throat and times my pulse, all in the space of two minutes.

"Now, the other tributes will already be in the know, because they arrived earlier. But you seemed to last a good few hours more, which you should be proud of. I will try to explain this to you as clearly and briefly as I can:

"Centuries before you were even born, during the initial wars for resources, the continents outside of Panem, then the United States of America, embarked on an international mission to transfer one tenth of the human population to another planet in a neighbouring galaxy. I won't bore you with the mechanics of the power technological prowess it took to transport that number of people to that planet, but I will tell you this: it was the most expensive, most risky project the human race had ever embarked upon. And it paid off.

"Today, outside this clinic, is a thriving metropolis, one of several, but not many. We humans had to begin again, producing and consuming materials from our new home sustainably, and ensuring that overpopulation would never again become a burden. The current ruler of Panem, President Snow, was well aware of how well members of rival nations were surviving, and so, after years of negotiations and summits, it was finally established that, under the ruse of an entertainment paradigm known as 'The Hunger Games' twenty-three of Panem's youngest citizens, from across all districts, all races and all backgrounds, would be granted eventual sanctuary on this planet.

"You may be shocked by the elaborate nature of this ruse, and naturally so, but you must understand that overpopulation, by reproduction or immigration, is considered in this society to be a fatal crime against humanity. If anyone outside of the presidential office was aware of what was occurring, there would be complete anarchy, an utter scramble for deliverance to a better world. So, for what has been seventy-four years now, this clinic has taken in twenty-three tributes, always either on the verge of death, or clinically dead and in need of revival, and put its most sophisticated medical equipment to use for their benefit.

"Questions?"

My mouth is dry from having been open for so long. I didn't know it was possible to feel so many different layers of emotions all at once: shock, fury, misery, relief, awe, anxiety, and utter bewilderment. I feel an overwhelming urge to yell at this matter-of-fact doctor, a symbol of one system which has decided, in collaboration with another, to rip my life to shreds, toss the pieces in the air, and expect me to pick them up.

Before I can, however, Jackal weakly intervenes:

"Don't, Logan. I was angry too. But it's just not worth it."

"It really isn't. You're stuck here," quips Dr. Smithson, suddenly full of verve as she scans my chart. "But at least you can count yourself as one of our luckier arrivals: flesh wound to the left shoulder with minor infection, plus the obvious bruising of the neck muscles. We also had to drain your lungs and sinuses of freshwater, but apart from that, you're perfectly fine. As soon as you're up to it, do feel free to stretch your legs and walk around this floor of the clinic, provided you don't get in anyone's way. Oh, and we tweaked your corneas a little: you now have 20/20 vision."

I try to form words of some kind, but find I can give no more than a thumbs-up with my right hand. Dr. Smithson smiles, taking the hint to leave. Before that, though, she points out which buttons will increase my morphine, crank my bed up and down, draw a curtain for privacy, and call a doctor should anything urgent come up. I blink and murmur "thank you", but the moment Dr. Smithson exits the ward, I sink back into my white pillows, overcome by a need to let my muddled thoughts find some semblance of order. I sleep.


	2. Other Newcomers

**Chapter Two**

**Other Newcomers**

**Author's Note****: Oh, wow, I have visitors already! :^D If you'd like to be name-dropped as awesome, please click the "Review" button at the end of this chapter. Thank you.**

**Logan**

My second sleep is dreamless, thankfully, but when I wake up, feeling groggy, the sterile ward feels just about as unreal as the nightmare ocean.

I sit up in bed and take a big yawn, grumbling to myself about the fact that I want very much to stretch my left arm, but can't.

A young man in a white jumpsuit wheels a trolley around the beds, stopping at each one with a different tray. Lunchtime, I guess.

Jackal thanks the attendant, but pulls a face as she opens the plastic lid of her white box: I see green leaves, brown rice and a very bland-looking chicken breast.

"I miss salt," she muses, spearing a leaf with her fork. I stare down at my own box, nodding to the attendant as he smiles and wheels himself out of the ward.

I have been given what looks like puréed carrots and peas, alongside some kind of bottled milkshake and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

On attempting the first swallow of purée, it becomes quite clear why they didn't give me anything throat-unfriendly. I have to take thirty-second breaks in between each mouthful, which means that by the time I get to the ice cream, it's melted into a sticky yellow sauce. I decide to skip it, savouring the milkshake instead: a label on the side reads "1 part peanut butter, 1 banana, 1 part semi-skimmed milk". A protein-shake, I suppose. I glance at my twig limbs and sigh inwardly.

Our boxes get cleared away by the same attendant, and it's then that I decide to take a walk.

"Anyone feel like joining me?" I propose to the room, only to be met with a few shaking heads. I look to Jackal.

"I'll pass, Logan. Don't think most of us are as up to it yet as you are."

She doesn't say it bitterly, but I see what she's getting at - compared to a lot of these tributes, I got off easy.

Still, I push back my blankets and slowly pivot my legs off the bed. To my surprise, I see on the floor a pair of white slippers. Their rubber soles, presumably there to stop patients from sliding all over the shiny floors, squeak even as I make a tentative move to stand.

Being at full height, after so many hours of lying horizontally, is a strange sensation. I feel like I'm putting my head above water and having a look around. The first thing that grabs my attention is the enormous, wall-length window at the end of the ward, overlooking this new location. Like an old man I shuffle towards it, wide-eyed.

The skies are a salmon-orange, with thin, cirrus-like clouds streaming over the cityscape. It reminds me of the Capitol, but only a little. Here, there are fewer skyscrapers and many, many more trees. The air outside must be so fresh.

I peer down. We're not immensely high off the ground, but enough to make me put a hand to the glass and steady myself. I see people walking leisurely by the marble banks of a sparkling river which, following it with my eyes, looks as if it networks all over the city. It looks clean enough to drink.

Then, out of the corner of my eye comes a moving object: it's a white tram, suspended from a sturdy rail just above our floor. It travels at a steady and silent pace, giving all the commuters on board the chance to gaze out of their windows and down at the hospital. At me.

With my newly-improved eyesight I catch their expressions: although fascinated by my presence, unlike the Capitolists, they're not ravenous for a glimpse; it's a fleeting interest they have in me, supported by the fact that the further the tram moves away, the more they turn their heads back to whatever they were preoccupied with before.

This does make me wonder how much these people, even the doctors, know about the Hunger Games. Do they get live coverage? My heart beats faster at this new prospect, and I realise I suddenly have this need to know how all the other tributes are doing. I'm a bit surprised I didn't think of them sooner.

I turn away from the window and back to face the ward, only to cast my gaze on a new development: Dr. Smithson leads a small procession of two other doctors as they enter through the doors, leading between them a gurney with a patient on it. Another tribute.

Squeaking as I go, my feet shuffle over to the end of the row of beds opposite mine. I don't want to interfere with what the staff are doing, but at the same time I have a burning desire to see who's underneath the oxygen mask…I initially feel disappointed that I don't immediately recognise this small blonde girl, but then a memory floats across the front of my brain - Dan from Eight, covered in silver on the chariot, standing next to a visibly self-conscious partner.

But what was her name? She hardly looks up to telling me, or speaking at all. Tubes hook her up to an IV and heart monitor, as well as an unmistakable bag of blood. Her white gown is on backwards, revealing a heavily bandaged chest.

"You okay there?"

I glance up at a male doctor I've never seen before. He has jet-black hair, cloudy blue eyes, and a five o'clock shadow.

"Oh, I'm alright," I reply. "Just stretching my legs."

He nods, apparently satisfied that I'm not just some odd person who likes to stare at new patients as they come in…even though that is fairly accurate.

I wait until the trio of medical staff have finished installing District Eight girl into our ward, and begin to strip off their gloves in exchange for new ones, to start asking questions.

"Excuse me," I say, making all three of them look sharply my way. Giving people their attention must be second nature to them.

"Oh, hi Tom," says Dr. Smithson. "Good to see you're on your feet."

"Yes, it feels good. Um, I was wondering -"

"Tom, this is Dr. East and Dr. Petri. They're also part of the specialist tribute team."

I obligingly shake hands with the two of them, Dr. Petri being the one who asked if I was okay. Dr. East has long, straight black hair and very small, smooth hands.

"So, I was wondering if I could ask a question-"

"Oh, you mean about the slippers?" pipes up Dr. Smithson. "Yes, I'm sorry if they seem noisy, but safety is obviously a high priority concern for our patients."

"Actually, I wanted to ask about the Games."

Their expressions don't change, but no one speaks. I try again.

"You know, the Hunger Games. I was just curious as to whether you can pick up live coverage."

Dr. Smithson opens her mouth to speak, and then closes it.

"Dr. East, I just remembered we have to, um, do rounds on Ward 22. Merit, can you field this one?"

Before my brain can register how unusual, and appropriate, the name "Merit" is for a doctor, Drs. Smithson and East are out of the ward with a swoosh. Dr. Petri rolls his eyes and turns towards me.

"Tom, right?"

"Well…yes," I say, giving up on suggesting Logan as a possibility.

"I'm sorry if you find this disappointing, but Neutron doesn't pick up any visuals from the Games. Not even here in the clinic, although I've lobbied from time to time for that to change - I mean, at least then when the tributes get hurt, we can have equipment on standby so that we know exactly what we're dealing with, but then there's that whole argument that we'd only be subscribing to the messages of glorified violence the show conveys…but I'm digressing. The short answer is no, we don't. But don't get me wrong - the people in this city don't know much, but they're not ignorant. So don't be surprised if you get a weird look once in a while."

"Yeah, so I saw on the tram just out…wait, what's Neutron?"

Dr. Petri frowns momentarily, before looking at his watch and realizing that he needs to be somewhere else. I follow him to the doors.

"Thought someone would have told you already - Neutron's the name of the planet you're currently on."

"Oh. Wow. I see."

Before I can pester him with more questions, Dr. Petri exits the ward with a wave of goodbye.

"Catch you later."

I decide I prefer him to Smithson, chatterbox extraordinaire.

I stand a few feet away from the doors. I lean forward, and they open. Now there's nothing standing between me and the rest of the hospital. I feel another current of conditioned air mingle with the air from our ward, hear distant voices and intercom announcements from other hallways. I turn around and head back to bed, not entirely ready to explore further just yet.

"When she wakes up, could you fill her in on what's happened, where she is, etc.?" Jackal asks nodding to District Eight girl. I slide my legs back under the covers and acquiesce.

I sit in bed twiddling my thumbs (well, thumb) and thinking about nothing in particular until the blonde girl emerges from her hazy sleep. I wait until she's fumbled around for the button to prop up her bed - unlike me, she gets it right the first time - to speak as clearly as I can across the room. I repeat back everything I've learnt today, from Jackal, Smithson and Petri, in as reassuring a manner as I can.

District Eight girl looks incredibly shell-shocked, but nods every now and again to let me know she understands. Then she leans back and falls asleep. I suppose I must have looked very similar.

A while later, dinner boxes arrive. I tuck into a creamy chicken soup, which Jackal stares at longingly. We both try to make sense of her own box: blobs of rice with, unbelievably, strips of raw fish on top.

"This is ridiculous," she mutters, nudging the offending fish off the rice with the end of her fork. "What's next? Tree bark?"

We chuckle between ourselves. An unconscious reference to District Seven was bound to come up sooner or later. This does make me think of Dad, however, for the first time since the Games began. The moment our boxes are cleared away, I press the button for a curtain to make its way around a rail above my bed. I pinch the bridge of my nose as the tears start to form.

They're only there for a second, as I suddenly feel exhausted, despite having done next to nothing all day. I lean back into the thick pillows and pretend I'm lying on a cloud, travelling along the treetops of District Seven, on my way back home. I can feel lights switching off as the ward powers down for the night.


	3. Critical Condition

**Chapter Three**

**Critical Condition**

**Author's Note****: Thank you to ArcticMist for being this story's first reviewer! It really does make my day to see review alerts, so please follow suit :^)**

**Legal:**** See previous story. And if you can't be bothered to do that, well, then it's not my problem.**

**Logan**

I would like, more than anything right now, to be given a watch. When I wake up, although the ward is flooded with daylight, I have no idea whether it's 6am or noon. The only way I can get a rough idea is by the arrival of our meal boxes.

Today, another lunch box arrives. Well, I suppose that's what morphine can do to you.

After finishing a small platter of smoked salmon and cream cheese, wrapped in spinach leaves, I take another walk around the ward. District Eight girl looks like she's out of her previous state of shock, and is now propped up in her bed, hands clasped in front of her, quietly observing the rest of the room. Not much else to do, to be fair.

I feel adventurous enough to take a look outside the ward. My slippered foot tentatively steps forward so the doors swoosh open, and this time I move into the hallway.

Again, all very white. There's no gloom in these walls, but neither is there any joy. There's…nothing, really. As a hospital should be, it's all very sterile.

To my left and right there are only doors to other rooms, other wards, with the occasional doctor passing between them. They notice my presence, but do nothing more than make a silent note of it in their heads. Hopefully I don't look too much like a mental patient.

There's something straight ahead of the tributes' ward which captures my attention: the closer I get, the more I smile inside. It's a balcony, fairly large, which looks out over the city and the hospital grounds.

The door to it requires a push, and when I get onto the balcony, the fresh air hits me like a crashing tide. I drink it in. It's so clean, with my eyes closed I feel like I'm back in District Seven, in the midst of redwoods and pines. It's a moment of bliss.

That's when I hear something that doesn't fit. It's a low droning that I initially brush off, but as it gets louder, I open my eyes and leap back from the balcony rail.

Moving right for the hospital, passing over my head, is a black hovercraft. I am immediately reminded of the Capitol, and the hovercraft that shipped the twenty-four of us tributes to the arena. It looks so _wrong_ against the light, bright backdrop of the Neutron cityscape.

I turn around to see where it's landing, but realise I can't incline my head very well because of the neck brace. Wincing, I pull open the door and hurry back to the ward.

"Hey," I say, a little breathless, to the other tributes. Some of them blink open their eyes wearily. "A hovercraft just came in. It was massive!"

"That means someone else got done in," concludes Archidamus, or Arc, from across the room. My perspective feels knocked askew for a second.

"Wait, _that's_ the thing that's been getting us here?"  
"Well, what did you expect?" Arc replies. "A magic rug?"

I don't respond to this, choosing instead to get back out of the ward and see if I can find out who's arrived. In my heart I'm, perhaps selfishly, hoping it's no one I like: Flint, Thorn, Katniss, Rue, and even Peeta or Dan.

At the right end of the hallway, I see a stairwell, and notice that we're on "Eighteenth Floor". I start climbing, gripping the banister with my right arm. I hate how unused my legs have become to moving quickly, and by the time I get to "Twentieth Floor", I'm already out of breath.

My efforts are not in vain, though, as I see that this is, apparently, the top floor. I open the door, and to my left I see the outdoor launch pad where the hovercraft has parked. The rest of the hallway, which is extremely long, is a lot busier than the one outside our ward, and soon I figure out why.

Doctors, in white scrubs, elbow length gloves, eye masks and hair caps, move quickly past a large sign that says, "Operating Floor". No wonder it's so huge.

There are a lot of doors here, and I decide to look through the third one on the left, because its blind is still open.

Voyeuristic though I feel, there's something fascinating about watching doctors at work. I've never been inside a hospital long enough to see what goes on, only in my mother's room with Dad. And that seems like decades ago.

There are too many people and machines crowded around the patient, but I catch the unmistakable flash of (once) glossy blonde hair, draped over the headrest of the table. Someone is gathering it up and tying it back so it doesn't get in the way of the operating team's work.

It doesn't take a genius to infer that that's Glimmer lying in there, but I have to say I wasn't expecting her, not so soon, being a Career and all.

I'm distracted from what's happening to her in there to the sounds on my left: urgent voices, hurried wheels, and the hovercraft's engines as it departs.

I look to the source, and feel blood rush away from my face.

Doctors are pushing another tribute in, along with a blood bag attached to an IV drip, and an oxygen tank connected to a mask. Someone gives her a shot of a substance I don't recognise, and her entire body shudders from it.

"Flint," I breathe, staggering back against the wall, willing it to swallow me up. She is cut up almost beyond recognition, like someone was trying to make patterns in her skin with a knife. Her eyes are closed.

"What are you doing, Tom?"

I look, confusedly, to the face of Dr. Petri. He's not pleased, and doesn't give me a chance to answer.

"You're not supposed to be on this floor. Get out of here!"

I do as I'm told, scurrying back to the stairwell and moving down two at a time. By the time I get back to the ward, my right arm is shaking and sweat is breaking out across my brow.

"Logan, you alright?" asks Jackal, looking concerned. "Did you see who they brought over? What happened to them? Logan…? Logan, what did you see?"

I get back to bed and sit upright, trying to unsee what I've just seen.

"Flint. And Glimmer," I finally get out. "Hurt in a bad, bad way."

"Wow," says Arc. "Wasn't expecting that. I mean, Glimmer's a Career, and she gets killed only a day after the bloodbath? That almost never happens. And Flint, boy, she scared the hell out of me, the way she gave everyone the shifty eye - "

"Hey, Arc?" Jackal interrupts. "Shut up."

He does. She leans over my way, with a small groan of pain, and pats my left hand, which is a bit awkward considering it's caught up in a sling, but the gesture still counts.

"Don't worry, Logan. The medicine in here is out of the world - literally. If they can fricking bring all of us back to life, they can fix Glimmer and Flint."

When Smithson and Petri come to do their daily rounds on us in the evening, I take the opportunity to redeem myself:

"Dr. Petri? Sorry about earlier - it's just, well, I saw the hovercraft come in and I really wanted to know who it was. It won't happen again. Sorry."

A nod and smile, even though he looks exhausted.

"Thank you, Tom. I understand how frustrating it must be for all of you, not knowing and just having to sit around and wait for news to come. For my part, I'm sorry I sounded harsh up there, but on the Operating Floor we just can't afford to have any onlookers. The only way we can guarantee full recovery is if we tackle the problem early, and with full concentration. You understand that, right?"

I nod.

"Could I ask you another question?"

"Go for it."

"Are they…done operating on the two tributes who came in yet?"

"Yes. In fact, the Noble girl…Glimmer, that's her name, was done in just under an hour - had to do a blood wash to get out all that tracker-jacker poison."

"Tracker-jackers? That's awful," I say, genuinely meaning it too. I've occasionally seen their nests in trees just towards the District Seven borders. I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.

It's a totally inappropriate time, but a part of me can't help finding it hilarious that her full name is Glimmer Noble.

"And Flint? The girl with…all the…" I can't even say it, so I trace a finger across my face to mime cuts. Petri nods and grimaces.

"Yes, Flint. Very nasty business. Out of this year's tributes, she's probably the worst off so far. But, thankfully, she's pulled through, so I've heard. We had to rotate staff because it was such a lengthy procedure."

My shoulders drop in relief. I wasn't aware of just how scared I was that she might have died.

"Okay. Good. But then…where is she? And where's Glimmer? I thought they would have joined us by now."

"That is standard procedure, yes, but there are always exceptions. Glimmer, for instance, refused to let us so much as go near this ward, at least once she woke up and realised there'd be other tributes with her. She put up such a fuss, we've put her in a private room. As for Flint, well…I'm going to be honest with you, Tom, she may be alive, but even without the possibility of complications, the damage is extensive. She's on the Intensive Care Floor."

"Oh." I swallow. It hurts, but not because of my neck. I think Petri feels sorry for me, because he then says this:

"If you like, you can go and visit her."

"Really? That would be okay? Because I don't want to cause any more trouble."

"Don't worry, it's no trouble. Just don't go wandering off trying to find her room for yourself. Dr. Smithson and I have one more ward to check up on, but when we're done, one of us will come and take you there. Sound good?"

"Yes. Thank you, thank you very much."

I feel like a weight's been taken off my chest, and subsequently relax a little until the sky turns blood-orange again. When the doors slide open, I can't help but feel a slightly disappointed that it's Smithson who comes to escort me to the Intensive Care Floor. Then again, beggars can't be choosers.

She takes me up there in the lift, even though it's just one floor above the ward. "Nineteenth Floor" is just as big as the Operating Floor, because of all the extra machines and private rooms.

I deliberately stare at the floor on our way to Flint's room, so that I don't accidentally catch sight of someone else's critical condition. I've seen enough for one day.

Smithson stops outside a room towards the end of the hallway, and I almost walk into her. She pushes open the door for me. In the corner of the room is another doctor I don't recognise, seated at a small table with documents spread out across it. Presumably this is what they mean by constant care.

I thought seeing Flint in this way might be more reassuring, in a way, now that the doctors and surgeons have done something to fix her. But if anything, it's worse.

She's connected to a lot of different machines, all gleaming and white, and I don't even know what half of them are for. It's like I can't even see her, underneath all these tubes, the hospital clothes, and of course, the deep scars in her skin. I bite my lip.

"When you think about it, the human race has come a long way in the world of medicine," Smithson muses. "Back on Earth, you couldn't have hoped to save someone with such appalling injuries, but now, here she is, living and breathing. Of course, how she'll be exactly when she wakes up is unknown. It'll certainly take her a good few days to get used to all the synthetic nerves we had to bring in to replace the spliced ones, especially the optic nerve. The technicians in our labs can take up to a month developing synthetic versions, getting the precision exactly - "

"Would you mind leaving us alone for a while?" I ask bluntly, omitting the part where I think her voice will make my head explode. She looks momentarily fazed, but humours me, exiting the room after a final glance at Flint's chart.

The doctor in the corner looks my way, with the slightest undertones of hostility, just in case I'm planning on switching off Flint's machines any time soon.

I pull up a chair to her bedside and watch the steady electric line of the heart rate monitor, each pulse accompanied by a beep. I notice her right hand is one of the few parts of her body free from scarring, so I gently clasp my own around it. I hold on firmly, wanting the uninjured Flint to wake up soon.

I stay like this for an hour, and then the doctor tells me I should be getting back to bed.


	4. Small Steps

**Chapter Four**

**Small Steps**

**Author's Note****: Apologies for not updating yesterday, but all these post-exam celebrations means I can hardly tell what day of the week it is anymore! Also, I may have committed an Anglicism in the last chapter - lift instead of elevator… But anyway, I'll hand you over to Logan now :^)**

**Logan**

That night I fight in my dreams against Marvel. We are back in the arena, by the riverside, and the air feels unusually fresh, as if it's just been raining.

This time he's the one kneeling over the water, while I stand at the edge of the trees watching him. I feel the weight of a sword in my hand, but I can carry it without strain. The second he finishes washing his face, I take my chance and ram the blade into his back.

Without warning, he vanishes. There are no traces of blood on the grass or in the water, but my hands are drenched in the stuff. Suddenly sickened, I drop the sword, which also disappears. I plunge my hands into the river, rinsing them over and over to no avail.

And then I'm distracted by something on the opposite side, amongst the long, wild blades of grass and dark tree trunks. The girl from Ten, Thorn, is fighting Cato, using only her limbs for weapons. She slams her foot into his chest and punches him under the jaw, before getting thrown to the ground. She's not down there for long, however, as she kicks him away from her and launches herself back into a standing position.

I return to my hands - _why isn't this blood going away?_

Someone wrenches my shoulder around, their fingers locked onto my bones. I mouth the word "Flint", but no sound comes out.

She doesn't move or say anything, but stares at me in disbelief. My brain slowly tries to work out what it is I've done wrong, but before I can reach any kind of conclusion, the dream ends.

Without thinking about it, I put both hands to my face as I come out of sleep, and then swear under my breath when a small dagger of pain hits me in my bad shoulder. At least it's not as bad as it felt yesterday, or the day before.

"Bad dream?" asks Jackal, half-muffled by her pillows.

"How can you tell?"

"You were whispering her name. Don't worry," she adds, catching my red face. "No one could hear except for me."

"Well…good."

"Are you planning on seeing her again today?"

"In the two minutes I've been awake, I, uh, have been considering it."

"Good to know, because last night, after dialysis, Petri told me I could start taking short walks - albeit on a stroller, but still, that's better than nothing, right?"

"Oh, that's great. It means you're on the mend," I smile, before picking up on an unfamiliar word. "Wait, dialysis?"

"Yeah. It's on account of my kidneys. They're not exactly up to processing things yet, so I gotta have a machine do it for me."

"Does it hurt?"

"I'm getting used to it, but let's just say that if I had to choose between walking on broken glass once, and having dialysis three times a week for four hours, I'd choose the glass every time."

"Wow. I had no idea, Jackal."

"Why would you? I had it the morning before you got out of surgery, and last night, like I said. If anything, you should be grateful you haven't seen me have it - it puts me in a bad mood."

At that moment our breakfast boxes arrive, and I'm delighted to see something a little more solid: yoghurt drizzled over peach slices, cut up into easy-to-swallow chunks. It doesn't take long to finish, and I have to wait for Jackal to give up on her bran flakes ("I'm starting to think the catering staff just don't like me") to ask her if she'd be up for a walk right now.

"Yeah, I guess that's fine. But we need a stroller, if you can track one down."

I get out of bed and saunter around the ward, coming across a pair of unoccupied strollers in the corner by the doors. A doctor, the one who Smithson introduced to me the other day, and whose name I've now forgotten, helps to detach Jackal from her heart monitor and attach her IV drip to the stroller frame.

When she's shuffled into her slippers, Jackal stays silent for a moment, almost smiling to herself that she's managed to get out of bed for the first time in days.

"So, I guess I don't need to ask you where you want to go. Lead the way, Logan."

I do, but at a slow pace. I can see Jackal trying to make her first steps look easy, but she grips the stroller with white knuckles. When we get to the elevator, I talk to her, hoping it will make her ease up.

"Just out of curiosity, do you prefer being called Jackal now? Or will you ever go back to your old name?"

"I've thought about it, but…I don't know, being on another planet, doing the Hunger Games, it would be weird going back to being just Hady. I mean, it's hard to think of it in that way, but we died. Like, we actually _died_. Maybe you don't feel the same way, but I can't ever be the person I was back in Seven. For me, Hady is still dead…so, to answer your question," she says more light-heartedly, "I think I'll be sticking with Jackal."

I look down the hallway, thinking about how much sense she just made.

"I suppose it's ironic, then, that over here I seem to be known as Tom again. Just plain old Tom, from the cabin village in the tree district."

"Hey, you're not plain. You just think you are."

We've reached Flint's room. I wouldn't have recognised it amongst the other identical doors, had the window blinds not been open. A doctor, not the one from last night, is changing her IV bags.

"Is it alright if we come in?" I ask, and after a pause, I'm given the go-ahead, and pass over the threshold. Jackal doesn't.

"You okay?"

If I didn't know any better, I'd have said Jackal looked scared. But she also looked tired, understandably.

"Actually, I think I'll go back to the ward. I'm walked out." She smiles, but her eyes dart to Flint and back again.

"Are you sure? You don't want to sit down for a minute and rest?"

"No, no, it's fine. Really. But thanks for keeping me company."

She wheels herself away. I close the door.

Flint looks pretty much the same as she did last night, head propped up on a generous heap of pillows, arms facing up. At least she looks peaceful.

In the daylight, I can see the scars from her wounds more clearly. The surgeons did a good job, in comparison to what I saw on the Operating Floor, but it'll probably be a long time before they clear up altogether, if that's even possible.

Thinking about this, I suddenly remember Glimmer, who's in a private room somewhere on our floor. I turn to the doctor, noting their nametag - Dr. Phso Qwa.

"Excuse me, Dr. Qwa, you wouldn't happen to know about another tribute who came in at the same time as this one, would you? Glimmer, uh, Noble? Blonde, got attacked by tracker-jackers?"  
"Oh, yes, I know who you're referring to," he replies, adjusting his glasses. "I've seen her once or twice, and I'll warn you now: leave a good few days before thinking about visiting, because if you go now, you'll only be talking to a locked door."

"Why? Does she really just want to be on her own all the time?"

"Well…" Dr. Qwa trails off, choosing his words carefully. "The blood wash has made her exhausted, you understand. I think she's not up to speaking to anyone at this time."

"I see."

Except I don't see. In an unfamiliar, sterile environment, in an entirely different galaxy, having recently _died_, the last thing I'd want on top of that would be loneliness. And from what I saw of her, Glimmer seems like the kind of person who'd be desperately craving social interaction right now.

It makes me wonder whether she's got something to hide.

**Hope you enjoyed that - if you did please click "Review". If you didn't, then please click "Review", to tell me what I could be doing better. Thanks!**


	5. That Which Does Not Kill You

**Chapter Five**

**That Which Does Not Kill You**

**Author's Note: Yes, as compensation for inconsistent updating, here's a second chapter in a row. I love that I can write for four hours straight and only come away with very painful shoulders…Remember, review this story, and I'll review yours!**

**Flint**

I keep reliving it. The first time the stars dispersed from my eyes, the pain, so deep, disappeared, and suddenly I was by lake again, unharmed.

Every time Clove does come at me, I scream at myself each time to move out of the way, or tackle her, but my reaction time is good for nothing. I don't feel the pain when it happens again, but the pressure of the knives is all too real. The sky keeps changing colour, from electric blue to rust brown to blinding silver.

After who knows how many cycles of this, things start looking up. Now I can turn around and start running in the other direction. But my body feels so heavy, and I actually have to look down to make sure I'm not dragging an anchor behind me.

I see Clove isn't the only one chasing me now. The other Careers are there. Damn them. Can't they just give up and leave me alone?

The trees ahead vanish without me even having to blink, replaced by a towering red ramp. I don't know why it's there, but that's not important. It's the only way now, so I have to keep running.

I feel lighter and get faster, and for a second I think I might just escape. But the ramp gets steeper and steeper, until - I don't believe this I'm running at 90 degrees now it's looping in on itself how am I doing this and why does my body feel heavy again this is the worst time that could happen I can see the sky there's nothing between me and the ground but air and -

Falling. The ramp moves further and further away until it's only a red line in the orange sky. I don't have to look down to know the ground is coming up beneath me, but I can't even shut my eyes. I collide with it -

Okay, now I know something has changed.

I'm in a hazy kind of darkness, all brown and grey and slightly warm. I know this feeling. It's sleep. I'm asleep.

I'm _alive._

My chest rises and falls. I can feel blood flowing through my veins. Death this is not.

My senses gradually kick in, and I can feel cool air on my face and arms. To my left…I think that's my left…a machine beeps. As I think this, I can hear the beeping up its pace a little. Wow, is that me? Am I doing that? It does it again - beep. Beep. Beep. Ha! It knows I'm alive!

I can feel myself coming out of deep sleep, and…and…I. Feel. _Awful_. Oh, you know what, I think I preferred being dead. _OH._ Everything hurts, why does everything hurt?

Now I feel too aware of myself. I want to be separated from my body so that this _PAIN CAN STOP_ - wait, what's that…ahhhh…oh, that's bliss. Whatever just hit my bloodstream, it's wonderful…even if it is making me feel sick.

My hand. Someone's holding my hand…who is it?

"Well, you…REM…maybe…her name."

"Flint? Hey, Flint? Can you hear me?"

I know that voice from somewhere. It's the first voice I've heard in what feels like a very long time. It takes some concentration, but I weakly squeeze the hand that holds mine.

I can feel the thing that made the pain go away start pulling me back into sleep, but I have to see. I have to see where I am, and who's calling me.

It's like I'm in a dream again - even my eyelids feel too heavy to move. Come _on_, what are you _good_ for if you don't open and let me see things?

Yes. Blurry hexagons of light pour into my vision. It's bluish - daylight. I see a lot of white around me, and a box-shaped thing on my left, ah, the beeping machine.

I can just - and I mean _just_ - make out a fuzzy person silhouette, pale-skinned with half an auburn head. Oh, that's his hair, right… Him. His name...

"Logan."

Whoa, my voice doesn't even sound like mine. It's like it'd been mangled and stretched to breaking point. I can feel my hand being raised. He's holding on tightly.

"You're awake, oh my goodness, you're awake. This is -"

But I don't hear the rest of what he says, because warm, comforting, nauseating darkness envelops me again. Time for more sleep. Sleep is good.


	6. Backbone

**Chapter Six**

**Backbone**

**Author's Note****: So, from the last chapter, it looks like Logan isn't the only one whose thoughts are being tracked with Free Indirect Speech. What shall come of this, I hear you ask? R & R to find out… **

**Logan**

I'm tempted to ask Jackal if she's alright, but sit down with Flint all the same. Before long, I find myself holding her hand again - something which only a week ago I wouldn't have even thought about doing.

A week. Is that how long it's been since this whole thing started? How can it be that a week earlier, I was sitting at the old kitchen table with Dad back in Seven? I feel so different now, so much…_older_.

I wonder if Flint feels the same, or at least will feel the same, whenever she wakes up. It occurs to me for the first time since entering this clinic that, as good a companion as Jackal's being to me, I need badly to talk things out with someone closer to my age, someone who might better understand the feelings I'm trying to pin down.

Of course, until she does come around, I'm stuck just sitting on them. I absent-mindedly run my thumb over the back of her hand. Thinking about it, actually, she has nice hands; far more delicate and feminine than I expected. Is that prejudiced of me? To assume that because a girl is tough in personality, her hands will also be tough?

My eyes glance over her scarred face, and it takes me a few blinks to realise the significance of the tiny, fast movements underneath her eyelids.

"Hey, look," I say. Dr. Qwa looks satisfied, even somewhat relieved. "Do you think she's waking up?"

"Well, you know, REM (or Rapid Eye Movement) is always taken as something of an olive branch by doctors when it comes to patients who have been in a deep sleep after intensive surgery. It means she's beginning to move into a lighter, more restless sleep. Maybe you can help ease her out of it by saying her name. You do know her name, yes?"

"Yeah, well, I know her first name."

"That'll do."

Swallowing, I lean forward slightly and say, in as soothing a voice as I can muster:

"Flint? Hey, Flint? Can you hear me?"

At first there's no change; her eyes just keep moving back and forth in sleep. Although the heart rate monitor did just increase its beat - I don't know whether or not to treat that as a good sign.

Then I feel her hand, previously still and unresponsive, squeeze my own. For reasons unknown, this makes me want to cry. I hold on, but not too tightly in case it hurts her.

After a failed attempt, she manages to open her eyes, but it doesn't look like she's really aware of what's around her. But of course, if she's up on the Intensive Care Floor, why would she be?

However, when her eyes, dark and richly brown, meet mine, there's a moment of recognition. I hold my breath.

"Logan."

The whisper is weak, and her voice is hoarse from lack of use, but it's there. Her eyes soon close again, though, and her hand slackens a little.

"You hang on in there," I murmur, feeling genuinely pleased by her progress. In the nicest way possible, Dr. Qwa then advises me to leave the room and come back another day, "when her condition has improved further". I comply, before catching a last look at her from the doorway.

I return to the ward in buoyant spirits.

"Hey, guys, good news," I announce. Most of them are up and awake, and turn to me with intrigued expressions.

"Flint's finally awake. Or at least, she was for a second before going back to sleep again, but still, for Intensive Care, isn't that great?"

I'm met with a blank silence. Only Mailo, her partner tribute, smiles from his bed:

"Good for her. Glad she's okay."

Apart from him, though, no one in the ward shows even the slightest change in mood.

"You know who I'm talking about, right? Flint from Six? She's one of us."

"One of us?" comes a voice from my row of beds. It's Arc, who continues bluntly, "Logan, no offence, but you're kinda kidding yourself there. I'm not really sure who's this "us" you're talking about, but I know she's not part of it."

"What do you mean? Why? She's not a Career or anything."

"Yeah," says Arc impatiently. "But there are Careers, and then there are the tributes who are good enough to join them, or go solo and kill off people that way. Either way, from day one of training she was a potential threat: stony eyes, hostile, and with an above-average showcase score. All the makings of someone I'd rather not try and form a friendship with."

I frown in confusion. Here I was, thinking it was quite simply a divide between the Careers and the underdogs.

"But…I got an above-average score," I say sheepishly. "And yet I'm on good terms with all of you…right?"

"Yes, Logan, don't worry," Jackal reassures me flatly.

"You're different," says Arc, attempting to fold his arms over his injured chest. He promptly winces and decides that's not a good idea.

"You may have gotten out of the bloodbath alive, but let's face it, getting killed on the first day, however it happened, means you're more like us than someone like her. Sorry, but that's the way it is."

Some of the other tributes nod their heads in agreement. Arc then says something else, a new, curious expression on his face.

"Can I ask why you care so much anyway? She's just another tribute. I don't know why you're so happy she's woken up."

I suddenly become aware of the fact that all eyes are on me again. Words go through my head in a confused stream, and I try to net some to form a satisfactory answer, but I can't.

Miraculously, at that exact moment the doors swoosh open to reveal Petri striding in. He looks pressed for time.

"Hey," he says to the whole room, despite looking directly at me. "I thought you guys might be interested to know that another tribute's just come in. Depending on how long the procedure'll take, he should be joining you soon."

"Who is it? How did it happen?" I ask as soon as he's done speaking. He looks at the chart in his hands.

"Daniel Whitebone; District Eight; according to the paramedics he fell off a cliff, and his back is bashed up in a bad way."

Petri tucks the chart under his arm and pinches his sinuses. I wonder if he ever sleeps.

"Oh boy, this is going to be a long night. I'll see you all later."

He rushes out of the ward again. I stand in the same place a little longer.

"Dan…" says District Eight girl from across the room. "Wow, that's terrible. And I thought he was gonna last until at least the final four. But falling off a cliff? I can't even imagine."

"Logan?" calls Jackal. "Are you alright?"

I turn to face the other tributes again.

"Yeah. I'm just thinking."

"That…?"

"That there is no way he just "fell" off a cliff. These are the Hunger Games we're talking about, after all. I bet you anything he was pushed."


	7. Leave My Body

**Chapter Seven**

**Leave My Body**

**Author's Note****: Sorry for not updating 2 days in a row! Very bad form on my part, so to make it up to all you awesome HG readers, I'm going to attempt to upload three - yes THREE - new chapters today. Let's see how I fare…**

**Ash**

There is no gap between the fading image of Cato's face and the scorching bulbs of light above my head. I am deeply confused - where did the Careers go? Where did the _arena_ go? Why am I on my back, moving, being pushed, and whose voices do I hear all around me?

The sound of clanking wheels on polished floor is another world away from the mockingjay songs and tree leaf whispers in the arena, wherever that's gone now. There is something cold and clinical about these lights.

Only when I'm moved through a set of doors does the view change: fluorescent lighting strips make way for a blue ceiling, affixed to which are more circular bulbs. It hits me just how much my throat hurts. It's like someone's stitched a searing hot fishing rod under the muscles, and I whimper helplessly in response.

A pair of hands are gathering my hair away from my shoulders and face. Other hands, clad in white rubber gloves, pass tools over my head. Wait.

…_WHOA_ am I in surgery? No! They can't do this! I didn't ask for this and what is _that_ thing and what's that beeping why is no one telling me where I am or how I got here what are they going to do to me -

"Ashes? Ashes? Look my way if you can hear me, Ashes."

My eyes frantically comb the part of the room I can see, for a face to match to these words. They find a man's face, obscured by a surgical mask and cap, leaving only his greyish eyes. He's waving a hand back and forth.

"Yes, here I am. That's great. Don't look away, just keep watching me. Now, Ashes, I want you to think of something familiar, an object, anything. Don't tell me what it is. All I want you to do is make copies of that thing, and count them off, one by one. I guarantee you'll only have to do ten. Can you do that?"

I blink, and want to nod, but find I can't even do that. Halfway through his instructions, something pricks my left arm, but I don't see what it is.

My eyes return to the ceiling, and I decide to go along with it and start counting. I picture ten lobsters in my head, pink and red and fresh for export. Like cards I topple them over, one by one: One lobster, two lobsters -

**Flint**

When I realise I'm coming up out of sleep again, I feel afraid of the waking pain that hit me yesterday - who am I kidding, I have no idea how many days it's been.

So it's comforting, in a weird way, that I slowly open my eyes with nothing accompanying me but a woozy head and serious lack of appetite. Why can I see more of the room today? Oh…someone's propped me up. _Oh_ so I'm on a _bed_. That makes sense now.

I don't notice the blonde doctor on my left straight away, so she leans into my field of sight. I regard her overenthusiastic smile with a flat stare, but she doesn't seem deterred.

"Morning, Ms. Verdasa. Or should I call you Flint? Would you prefer that? I'll call you Flint. Now, there's a lot to get through today, but we'll take it a step at a time, alright? Can you tell me how you're feeling at the moment?"

It takes a pause for me to root around for the correct word, and then make myself speak it:

"Okay."

"Super. Of course, if you stop feeling okay, then let me know right away, and we can increase your morphine. Let's get started, shall we? Small movements are the most important for all our patients on Intensive Care."

Before she can give me a chance to react properly to words like "morphine" and "Intensive Care", the blonde doctor pulls back the covers all the way past my feet. Now I'm cold.

"Wiggle your toes for me, please."

I want so badly to roll my eyes at her, but even blinking is laborious, so I just go with it. I wiggle my toes, hearing the joints crack. Same goes for my fingers when she asks me to move each of them up individually, and when I have to flex my wrists, turn my head one way, and then the other way. All of this happens slowly and painfully. I don't like it, but then, if I want to regain any kind of strength, which I do, then I guess I've just gotta push through the discomfort.

"Now blink three times for me. Normal speed. Great."

The fact that closing and opening my eyes is exhausting makes me feel pathetic, but it is literally like someone's placed tiny hot coals under my eyelids

This doctor lets me know, with a little more pride than you'd expect for a normal person, that her name is Smithson. She finds my ability to swallow without choking a cause for celebration, clapping her hands and _still_ smiling.

The big window on the left wall of the room is becoming more attractive by the minute, either for me or for her.

Having said that, I'm kinda pleased with myself that I can actually recite words like "hello", "sky", "food" and "white" when told to, considering that the last time I was awake it felt like an almighty task to say "Logan".

Logan…I haven't yet attempted to figure out for myself why he was here, or even why I'm here. Hell, if we are both here, I don't even know where or what "here" is. It's a hospital, I've surmised that much, but as to how I got here, why I'm still alive, and what's going to happen next, well, that's totally beyond me.

"Well, Flint, looks like I can tick you off for each of today's recovery exercises. Good for you!"

Oh yes, ticking me off is certainly something you're doing right now…

As her pen moves neatly down her clipboard, scratching the paper, another doctor walks - or should I say skids - into the room. Her hair is long and black, like mine, but thinner. She's also more petite, and tucks a pair of thick glasses into her coat pocket.

"Mel, another one's come in. Female, District Four."

"What's her condition?" Smithson asks, suddenly serious and in the zone.

"Stab wound over a burn on the ankle, and slashed throat. We need blood type AB negative."

"I'll order one up for you from the blood bank. Do you need an extra pair of hands?"

"If you could, please."

For a second I have this bizarre image of Smithson handing over a pair of artificial hands to this small doctor, and then I realise she means extra help. Man, I'm slow.

Smithson hooks the chart back onto my bed and starts tying her hair back.

"Sorry Flint, but I need to go," she says, as if I hadn't heard their entire conversation there and then. "This time of year, tributes are our top priority. I'll send someone else up to keep you company. Do we have a name?"

"Ashes Maxim. Eighteen years old."

With that, the two doctors hurry from the room, leaving me all alone for the first time since I got here. When the silence descends, it's like something's rattled my head into order. I start connecting things at lightning speed: tributes arena Hunger Games Ash Logan Dan and Thorn the Careers the Cornucopia the lake Clove…

I don't blink. Not because it hurts too much, but because I'm in too much shock to do anything. My hand flies to my face, and it's at that point that I finally feel the scars. Everything comes back in details I never wanted to keep. Sunlight glinting off the edge of her knives, which kept coming at me relentlessly.

The dreams come back to me, too. To think that in my waking hours I've been a total amnesiac about this. But how could I forget? How am I ever going to forget about the Games? I shouldn't be alive. Like, there is no way I can even be alive, and yet I'm sitting here, breathing, thinking, living.

I can't even cry. That's how bad it is.


	8. Unexpected Guest

**Chapter Eight**

**Unexpected Guest**

**Author's Note****: Thanks to the reviewers who have posted so far - unfortunately, most of them are anonymous, so I can't actually thank them by name! Still, if you're reading this, thank you anyway :^)**

**Ash**

I wake up from surgery lying propped up in a bed. Ooh, pillows, how I've missed these…

My head feels like it's full of cotton wool, so I try not to move it. My eyes are heavy, but as the anaesthetic gradually wears off, my ears pick up more of the sounds in my surroundings: heart monitors, wheels, squeaking shoes and distant intercom announcements, as well as the occasional urgent shout across the hallways for a specialist in this or that.

It gets to the point where the prospect of yet more deep sleep just seems boring to me, so I open my eyes and gather my bearings.

The last person I expect to see opposite me is Flint from Six. My eyes and mouth open widely in perfect synchronicity, which she acknowledges with a hoarse, even weak, chuckle.

For the initial minutes after I wake up, I actually feel terrified of her presence and, shallow as it may sound, her _appearance_: her covers have been shrugged off, so I can see the scars that run in great long lines all the way down her legs and arms, interspersed with smaller, shorter ones. It makes me shudder to think how many others there might be under her white paper gown. All are dark and red, still fairly raw against her bronzed skin. There's even one straight in the middle of her eyes, on the bridge of her nose.

I can't look her directly in the eye yet - I can only view a sight so horrible for so long.

"Yeah, sucks to be me right now," she says in a tone close to a whisper - I have to strain my ears to catch the words. "But I haven't seen a mirror yet. Guess it must be really bad."

I make my eyes turn back to her face and do my best to ignore the marks, despite how out of place, how utterly wrong, they look on her.

"Who?" I mouth subconsciously. Flint's eyes get even darker than I've seen them usually.

"What, I get stabbed more times than I can count, and you're having trouble pinning it on somebody? I know you just got out of surgery, but…" she pauses, a flicker of discomfort passing over her face, "…jeez, keep up."

Clove. She's right - only that Career would have the gall to do something so sadistic. One clean cut would probably have done the job, but apparently Clove doesn't care much for efficiency.

I want to say so many things: tell Flint how much more I hate Clove right now, but also ask where we are and why the hell neither of us are dead women.

I want to, but when I open my mouth to try, I can't. A sickening feeling of realisation descends onto me, as I form words with my lips and push on my vocal cords, and yet produce no accompanying sounds.

When I put my hand to my neck, it's obvious why: I'm swathed in layers of bandage, thick enough to be a scarf, and with every gulp of spit my throat is pierced with pain.

With the addition of my bad ankle wrapped in white and hoisted in a little sling, the events of the last twenty-four hours come to the forefront of my mind. I can't believe it. I just can't believe what happened to me, what I saw, from Thorn getting a knife stuck into her shoulder, to the cutting look Vixen gave me right before she delivered a fresh gash to my ankle and threw me into the open, to the expression on that maniac's face as he stole my final moments of life…and yet after all that, I'm somehow alive again. Was I ever dead? I…

I may not be able to speak, but bursting into tears seems to be no problem. I rock back and forth in my bed with my hands cradling my face. It's all too much, too much to comprehend at once.

Flint waits until I'm slightly more composed, clearing away my tears with hasty fingers, to continue her whispered conversation (or is it a monologue now?)

"If it's any consolation, and hey, it probably won't be, but whatever, there's still a hell of a lot I don't understand about this place. But while you were under, I got given a letter, from the main team in this clinic, handing me the main points. I don't wanna freak you out by trying to explain it myself, and besides…it's too exhausting. So it's just as well you've got one of your own."  
She tilts her head forward a tiny fraction, to indicate an open white envelope on my left bedside table. I reach over and set it in my lap. I glance at Flint and, as if she's read my mind, she makes a lazy gesture with her hand.

"I won't be offended if you read it now. Knock yourself out."

Without another word, she makes herself more comfortable amongst her pile of pillows and settles into a light nap. I remove the letter from the envelope, and feel my eyebrows shoot up when I see that it goes on for four pages. Double-sided.

After a good forty minutes of me reading and re-reading the letter, I let the pages sit at my feet in a well-thumbed stack. I stare at them, trying to put all the new information that's just been thrown at me into small, neat, manageable boxes: Was dead. Came back to life through the power of medicine. In a new city. On a new planet. In a new galaxy. No Capitol here. Overpopulation = bad. Getting back to Panem = bad. Staying here and becoming a nice, healthy, happy, law-abiding citizen = good.

That's all I can do for now. Until I can think more clearly and get used to my environment, I need to close the emotional gates.

A gentle knock on the door gets me out of my trance, and my entire face lights up in surprise. I mouth the word "Logan!" and reach out my arms to somehow compensate for my lack of speech. He smiles politely and, to even greater surprise, hugs me, careful to avoid pressing on my neck. I guess he thinks that's what I was attempting to do.

"Hey, Ashes, good to see you're here. Well, I mean, obviously not that you're here in the sense of being injured, but…oh, you know what I mean."

I smile, grateful for another tribute in the room. While I'm glad neither of my arms is in a sling, I can't help but feel envious of Logan's ability to apparently walk freely around the clinic. I get a small pang in my heart, longing for the gymnastics I did during training.

"Listen, I heard yesterday you'd come in from the arena, and since I've been visiting Flint, uh, a bit, the doctors asked me if I could stop by and give this to you. They think it might make things a little easier for you."

He hands over a blank whiteboard and black marker pen. I grin, and make the first words I write on it **Thank you!** He laughs, and leans in for a high-five:

"Nice bandages," he says, indicating his own, tougher, neck brace. I frown, then scribble a question on the board:

**How did it happen?**

He sighs, and I immediately wish I hadn't asked.

"Marvel," he replies bitterly. We share looks of mutual loathing for him. "Strangled me underwater. Not something I look back on fondly, you might say."

I try to look as sympathetic as possible. Communicating without words is hard.

"Hey, Logan."

"Oh, you're up!" Logan says, moving over to Flint's bedside. He draws up a chair. "Wow, yesterday you could barely say anything. Now you sound, well, almost…"

"Normal?"

"Something like that," he says with a sheepish smile, patting her hand. She holds it back.

Hello…two tributes who aren't Katniss and Peeta holding hands? Who would have thought…but then, maybe it's not as weird as I'm making it out to be. After all, we're in a strange, scary new place, totally cut off from everything familiar, in considerable pain and feeling weakened. Put like this, I actually allow myself a brief moment of self-pity, wishing I had someone to hold my hand right now.

I don't really want to be the awkward third-wheel, but I've got questions that need explanations, so I squeak my marker across the board again, and hold it up for them to look away from each others' eyes for a second.

**Who else is here?**

Logan looks slightly daunted by the prospect of listing all the other tributes, but he does his best anyway:

"Uh, let's see…there's Jackal, from my district, the girl from Eight who was Dan Whitebone's partner, a guy called Arc who I think is a little too confident in himself, um…Flint's partner Mailo, your guy, uh, Dyon…and a girl called Perdita and…oh man, I know I'm forgetting someone…oh yeah! Tristram, he's from Five, plus Kiko, the boy with the limp. Oh, and Glimmer."

"Wait, _what_?" says Flint with more volume. "When did she get here?"

"Same time as you. But there's no way you could have noticed - you weren't even conscious."

"Huh…although…" her eyes move back and forth. She's thinking back to something. "Yeah, actually that makes sense now. At the lake, when Clove…attacked me, Cato and Marvel were there, but she wasn't. Or that guy Peeta."

**Who got her? And does that mean Peeta's here?**

"Not necessarily," Logan says. "I'm on a ward on the floor below, with the other tributes. If he's arrived, I probably would have known about it. I talk to the doctors a lot. As for Glimmer, well, it's not a question of who, but what. Tracker-jackers," he explained simply.

Flint and I react simultaneously, and we both wince. Glimmer was stuck-up and an airhead, no question, but even she wouldn't deserve that kind of death. Just picturing it now…oh, it's too horrible. It makes my skin crawl.

I take my mind off it by asking another question. I bet I'm going to start annoying people soon with this.

**Logan, is she on your ward?**

"No. Apparently she's up on this floor somewhere, having pushed for a private room. I once asked if she was seeing visitors, and they told me flat out that she's not interested in seeing anyone."

"Figures," says Flint acerbically. "Even in a hospital, she thinks she's too good for people from non-Career districts."

"Maybe," says Logan cautiously. "But there's also the possibility that she just doesn't feel like talking to anyone. I mean, since she lost so early on, in comparison with the Careers in other years' Games, she's got no company, no one like her. Still, if she wants to commit herself to crippling boredom and isolation, then that's her business. I personally couldn't care less."

While I get the feeling he added that last part to emphasise his being on Flint's side, Logan has a point. If it was the other way around, if I'd just arrived here with only the Careers for company, I'd much rather be by myself.

Halfway through Flint's rant about Dr. Smithson's babbling voice, I catch something happening out in the hallway through the window - the blinds are up. With no time to write it out, I get Flint and Logan's attention by rapping the board against the rail on my bed and pointing.

Logan gets up from his chair and looks through the window. I see his expression change rapidly to shock.

One after the other come three gurneys, each with its own team of fast-acting doctors prepping the tributes for surgery. I see a guy with black hair whom I vaguely recognise…from Three, that's it. After him comes the considerably smaller form of Rue, asleep, but restlessly, and clearly in pain.

The third tribute stuns me more than those two. Stretched out, groaning in pain, is Marvel. Another Career. What is going on?

When the three of them disappear into elevators, my eyes dart to Logan, and I instinctively edge away from him. He's angry, but not in an overt way. I can see it in his eyes and his clenched fists - it's fury alright, but one that's brewing violently underneath his otherwise friendly exterior.

"What is it? Someone tell me what's happening!" demands Flint, albeit still weakly, from her bed.

**Marvel, Rue, & guy from Three.**

Her eyes grow as wide as mine, and she joins me in anxiously regarding Logan, who is still staring out of the window.

"Logan…" says Flint carefully, not taking her eyes off him. "Are you okay?"

He doesn't turn around.

"I'll kill him." My heart pounds extra hard, because this is not something a person like Logan would say, let alone so seriously. "Let him think he's getting better, and then I'll go and throttle him, see how he likes it."

"You have every right to hate him now," says Flint. "But Logan…damn it, _look_ at me."

He does. She continues to stare back imploringly.

"Logan, listen. Marvel is scum, don't we all know it. But the second you start thinking it's okay to get your revenge by killing him, that you can justify it like that, you become like him. He thought it was necessary to kill you; that's the mindset you want if you want to win. And Clove, even hallucinating from tracker-jackers, she went with her instincts and killed me. Hell, my body's proof that she didn't just want to kill me; she wanted to destroy me. You sure you want to do what they did to us?"

Silence, one that I'm really tempted to break by scribbling **I agree** on the board. Logan seems to share that sentiment, as he leans back against the door, closes his eyes and exhales slowly. When he opens his eyes again, he automatically looks more like himself.

"You're right. You're absolutely right…frick, what just happened to me?"

**You got angry. It's natural (as long as you don't follow up on it).**

He chuckles and nods. I write something else:

**And the moral of the story is…"necessary" killing = A BAD THING.**

**Author's Note****: *****looks at clock with raccoon eyes***** Well…I may not technically have achieved the goal of three chapter updates in one day, but to be fair, this is such a long one, it's basically 2-in-1! **

**As a small token of appreciation for my lack of sleep, please review! Thank you.**


	9. If I Fell

**Chapter Nine**

**If I Fell**

**Author's Note****: It would appear I'm battling Writer's Lethargy - what I think of as something a few degrees less severe than Writer's Block. Nonetheless, I'll try and push through another update. Of course, you know what helps…yes, reviews! A few words is all I ask, which I'll return in a review to your story :^)**

**Dan**

Normally my dreams involved running, whether it's through forests, over deserts or along waterfronts. But right now, all I feel is falling. My own body's weighing me down, and yet I'm weightless enough to keep on rushing through air and sky. It never runs out. Why haven't I hit any -

Okay. Now I'm still. There's something underneath me, and it's not falling. That's a good thing.

But where am I now? I remember a cliff…oh jeez. I got pushed off the cliff. The Careers are all the way up there, and I'm down here, and…surely I shouldn't be alive?

It occurs to me only now that opening my eyes might give me a better idea about where I've ended up. And when I do, and all I see is a clean, white space broken by two large lamps, I know the cliff is must be a million miles away from wherever I am.

"What..." I say in a croakier voice than I remember having.

"You're awake."

My face goes into a spasmodic convulsion at this delicate sound, which is coming from my right. I try to sit up, but can't for some worrying reason. Thankfully, I can move my head to the right, and when I do, I see the face of my district partner looking down at me. She's propped up in a clean bed, attached to machines and drips that leave no doubt in my mind that we're in a hospital.

"It's…it's you."

"Yeah," she says with a hint of a smile.

"That is not possible. I watched you die. Y-you got stabbed right through the heart."

"Well, not the first time. But they finished the job, after I begged. Still, medicine over here is really something. The doctors tell me I'll be up and walking by tomorrow, if I want."

"Over here? Where's here?"

"It's a long story. And I mean long. I'm talking pages of typed words long. You've just woken up, Dan. If I were you, I'd just try and get some rest. Everything'll be explained soon."

"Okay…right." I close my eyes again, trying not to let my mind crack like an egg. One thing at a time, one foot in front of the other, otherwise you'll trip over your own feet. That's pretty much my running mantra.

I look over her way again, and know I'm going to have to admit this sooner or later:

"I am so sorry, but I just cannot remember your name."

"That's okay - we've all been through a lot; stuff gets pushed out of your head easily, I guess. It's Meliss."

Meliss Meliss Meliss Meliss…I am so not forgetting this again, unless I want another awkward situation later.

"Can you tell me, Meliss, why I can't get up?"

Her expression becomes uneasy; it's not an answer I'm going to like.

"Well, when they brought you in here a couple of hours ago, I overheard the doctors talking about your condition. Considering you fell, like, seventy feet, it sounds like you're actually doing quite well. But…"

"But…?"

"Apparently you landed on your back, so your spine got broken in, well, a lot of places. But before you panic -" she adds, upon catching my wide eyes, " - I'll say it again: the resources this place has are beyond belief. Operations we couldn't even dream of in Panem are routine here. Which means you'll be…um, , but only for a couple of days."

"_What?_"

The minute the word escapes my mouth, my fears are confirmed, and I suddenly can't _not_ notice that, hard as I try to will my limbs to move, I remain totally still. I start hyperventilating.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh man I can't move, I can't move…"

"Dan?" says Meliss, putting a hand on my shoulder in an effort to calm me down. Unfortunately, it does the exact opposite because, although I can see her hand right there, my skin and bones can barely feel its presence.

"You say there're doctors in this place? Well someone needs to get one over here right now and I mean right now because I _can't move_ - "

"Dan? Hey, Dan, look - you remember me, right? Look at me."

My head turns to the left, and in my rising state of anxiety, I can't place a name to the face I see.

"Come on, I used to wear glasses. I was the guy in the all-too-revealing toga during the chariot procession."

Oh…oh, that's a relief. For one horrifying moment I thought I'd been hit with memory loss.

"Logan, man…didn't recognise you. What are you doing here?"

He kneels, kind of awkwardly, by my bed, arms leaning against the rail.

"I'm here for the same reason you are, and the rest of us: to thank our lucky stars we're alive. And to complain incessantly about the aches and pains that are the price for it."

"Fair enough…wait, rest of us?"

"Yeah, you're on the main ward. There are about ten of us, and with you, eleven, although from where you're positioned, I'm guessing you can't see that."

"Hey Dan!"

"Good to see you're awake."

"Welcome to the club."

"Alright, Dan?"

Whoa. That's a lot of voices. So, at this point, I can deduce this much: the other tributes are here, in this hospital, alive but injured, like me. Cool - that's about all the information I can process right now.

"Feel better now?"

I let my head sink deeper into the pillow beneath me. There's a thin layer of sweat on my brow, but I definitely feel calmer.

"Yeah, I do. Thanks."

"Personally, I think distraction of any kind is the best thing to complement medicine. And while we're on the subject, with you being awake now, you might be interested to hear that Flint and Ash are here too, in a private room just on the floor above."

My eyes instantly take more notice of the ceiling.

"Seriously? Wow. I mean…Flint, she was…I…"

"Did you see it happen?" asks Meliss with a certain amount of caution.

"Yeah. Well, no, I didn't see it happen exactly, but I saw the aftermath. It was horrible. Imagine…actually, don't. I don't want to think about it." I try to mentally shake out the flashback of Flint's wounds. "How is she? And Ash? What happened to her?"

"In spite of everything I've heard…and seen…Flint seems fine. I was visiting her just now, and saw that Ash had joined her. Flint's scarred badly, and she can barely move. Makes me so sad to see her that way, I can't tell you. As for Ash, I don't even know what happened to her - she hasn't told us anything yet. All I can say is that her throat looks like it got slashed, because it's all bandaged up - like me - and she has to use a whiteboard to say anything."

"Jeez," is all I can respond with. Secretly I think to myself, selfish as it's going to sound, how strangely relieved I am that there are people with just as many physical issues as I've got right now. Logan looks like he got off easy in comparison. But I'm obviously not gonna say _that_ out loud.

"Except you just did," he says, still kneeling, with a neutral expression.

"Oh, crap." Fifteen minutes awake and most of what I've been saying has been pretty damn stupid. "I'm sorry, man. I don't mean that -"

"It's fine, don't worry. Really, don't. You're right. I've been thinking the same thing ever since I woke up. To be honest, if I couldn't walk, I'd be a lot more miserable."

I can't tell whether he genuinely wasn't thinking when he said that, or whether he's getting his own back for what I said. Either way, it smarts, because more than anything right now I want to get out of this bed, out of this building, and run all the way back to District Eight, to find an empty space with lots of trees where I can yell until my lungs burst.

**Author's Note: Fanfic trivia of the day - the title of this sequel comes from the opening lines of T.S Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', which, personally, I think have to be some of the best out there in poetry: "Let us go then, you and I/When the evening is spread out against the sky/Like a patient etherised on a table". :^)**


	10. Going Nowhere

**Chapter Ten**

**Going Nowhere**

**Author's Note****: Evening! Hope you're all well and ready for a new chapter This one may end up being shorter than the others, but that could change; we'll see… Oh, and please review, otherwise my smiley :^) will turn into a frown...y :^( Does that work: frowny? Review and let me know what you think ;^D**

**Flint**

You know, as grateful as I am that today is the first day I can digest solid food, there is something excruciatingly awkward about being spoon-fed puréed carrots and peas for dinner, by a nurse who's sitting about two feet away from your face.

"How's that? Is that good?"

"Yeah," I mumble in between slow swallows, demanding over and over in my head that this nurse stop being so condescending. Where is Logan? I need some actual company.

Yes, I know Ash is in the bed opposite mine for twenty-four hours of the day, but let's face it, with her ankle in a sling and her vocal cords out of action, her capacity for entertainment gets exhausted pretty quickly. We did kill an hour by playing a one-sided picture-guessing game with her whiteboard, but apart from that, the atmosphere in this room has been plain static.

But then, to be fair, it can't be much fun for her either. At least I can eat now; she's still stuck with vitamin drip-feeding.

Just as I reluctantly finish the last spoonful of mash, Logan pokes his head around the door.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"I hope you don't mind," he says, opening the door wider. "But I brought along a friend."

Unintentionally, my heart deflates a little in disappointment. I prefer it when it's just him. A blonde girl who looks tired, too skinny, but nonetheless chirpy, makes her way into the room on a stroller, pushing hard into the handlebars.

"Private rooms are given that name for a reason, you know," tuts the nurse, clearing up the tray my mash came on.

"No, no, it's fine. They're my guests." I throw a smile Logan's way, and he throws one back. "I want them to be here."

It's hard to say this forcefully, since I'm still a bit hoarse, but she seems to get the message. She gets up and takes the tray out the door with her.

"One hour, and then they need to leave, so you two can rest."

"Yes, fine, whatever. Thank you," I say impatiently. The nurse rolls her eyes and closes the door behind her, leaving the four of us alone.

"Flint, Ash, this is Jackal. Don't know if you remember her from before the arena but, uh, she's from Seven too."

"Hi," says Jackal quietly. She casts a polite smile to each side of the room, but it's no secret that she's feeling hostile towards Ash and I. Guess the sponsors weren't the only ones to get a strong impression from us.

"Do you wanna sit down?" I say, in an attempt to put her at ease. "Looks like walking's a tough job for you."

"Oh. Thanks, yes I do." Logan helps her sit back into the chair that he normally pulls up. She looks visibly relieved.

"So what's your deal?"

"Sorry?"

"Who got you?"

"Oh," says Jackal. "Clove. In the kidneys."

"That sucks. Although that gives us one thing in common, and I can always use yet more reasons to hate her guts."

"You too, then."

"Whose handiwork would this be otherwise?" I say, turning out my arms and legs for her to see. I can tell she's been trying not to notice the scars.

"And how are you, Logan? Haven't seen you since…yesterday."

We laugh together on cue.

"Yes, I'm the same as ever. Although, not wanting to jinx it, I think my neck's getting better."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I can turn my head more easily, and I'm not in agony every time I have a drink."

"That's great…"

The nurse, in all her short, huge-lipped wonder, interrupts me by re-entering the room.

"I almost forgot to let you know - tomorrow morning you'll be called in to start physiotherapy sessions. They'll all be tailored to suit your individual needs."

"Physio? Got it. Tomorrow. Sounds good. Now goodb-"

"Oh, um, not you, dear. I'm afraid being in Intensive Care works against you on this one."

What. Hell. No. I can't take being in this bed much longer, and if I know everyone else is up and getting to move about, well, that'll just make me go crazy.

"Are you serious? Am I not even allowed to be wheeled in there and watch?"

"I'm afraid not. Don't worry, your time will come, probably by the time your body can handle all your new, synthetic organs and nerves without external instruments. But for now, you're not going anywhere."

"But…"

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing more I can say."

I'm just about ready to rip out these wires and tubes so I can stand up and say "Look! I'm FINE!", but the squeaking of a marker pen diverts my attention.

**What about me?**

"You? Well, from what I've been told, you're down to attend physio tomorrow with all the rest of them, but on crutches. There's no way your ankle will be able to take much at this stage."

Ash's shoulders sink a little, which annoys me. At least she's _going_, while I'm stuck here, doomed to isolation and unbelievable boredom for who knows how long. When the nurse finally leaves for good, I flop my head back onto my pillows, blowing a strand of hair out of my face. Logan pats me on the back of my hand with a sympathetic smile. He's so cute like this.


	11. Electric

**Chapter Eleven**

**Electric**

**Author's Note****: Okay, my excuse for not updating on the weekend is actually good this time - prom! There, an awesome excuse. As for this chapter's title, I briefly considered "Electric Heat", but it sounded too much like "Heat Electric", which was the name of a gas company in the UK in the 80s. Trivia. **

**Dan**

For all I know, I've been confined to this bed for months instead of days; the only thing in my line of sight is the ceiling, and that got boring after, like, five minutes.

I get turned over from side to side, periodically, by attendants to prevent bedsores, but that's hardly enough to satisfy my hunger to leap up and move around, explore my new surroundings. For now, I'm limited to lying here, submissive and passive, like an old man. Hell, I've even seen old men back in Eight who can still run a mile like it's no big deal.

The worst thing is, normally I'm not one for self-pity, but spending so much time with my own thoughts means that it's harder to evade. And of course because I hate self-pity, this just makes me more frustrated and even _more_ self-pitying….

"I have got to get out of this bed."

"You will, Dan, " says Meliss. "The doctors will help you through this, and then you'll be going to physio with the rest of us."

"Boy, I'd give anything to do that right now."

"All you need to give us is your time and cooperation, my friend."

The next thing I know, Dr. Petri is standing over me.

"They don't by any chance train you guys in the art of making well-timed entrances, do they?"

"Part of the package," he grins. "Dan, we're getting your private treatment set up, so if you just wait here for about half an hour while everyone else goes to the Physio Floor."

Yeah, wait here - I'm not exactly going anywhere. Although my ears prick up on the word "private"; I already knew I was going to be kept separate from the other tributes, but as for the details of this ominous-sounding treatment, I'm being kept in the dark.

I can hear the tributes on the rest of the ward gradually being herded out into the hallway, either on foot, crutches, or in wheelchairs. But none of them are still bedridden. Sigh.

"See you later, Dan," says Meliss.

"Catch you later, Dan," says Logan, waving his good arm into my field of vision.

"See ya," I respond.

When the hum of chatter dies away, all I'm left with is silence. I blink a few times, yawn, and then start playing the cloud game through the nearby skylight for the twentieth time since I got here.

I'm just deliberating with myself over whether I'm looking at a duck or a rabbit when I hear the doors open, and wheels rolling through them. I snap my head to the right, get neck pain, don't care, and make out two stretchers. Two tributes. New tributes.

"Hey… hey…" I speak up in their direction, wanting immediately to know who they are. Thorn? Vixen, maybe? Hope not - she gave me bad vibes in the arena.

"Who is that?" mumbles a small voice I don't at first recognise. Then I catch a glimpse of curly black hair, and the name comes to me.

"Rue? Is that you?"

"Oh, I remember you: the guy painted silver, right?" I hear a weak giggle, which turns into a spluttering cough. My cheeks go red for a second at the not-so-distant memory of the procession. But I guess that's better than being "the guy who almost got killed by Cato before the Games even started".

"Just call me Dan," I reply. "You alright over there? I would, y'know, wave or look up or something, but that's kinda outside my capabilities right now."

"He broke his spine in approximately three different places," pipes up Smithson helpfully.

"Owch. That sounds awful. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," I say, albeit with a sigh. "Apparently there's a treatment that'll make me able again, right docs?"

"Little by little, yes," says Smithson.

"Now, Rue, the earliest you'll be able to eat solid foods will be in two to three days," I hear Petri say. "I'm afraid until then you'll have to stay on the IV drip - it's one fairly substantial wound you've got there."

"You got hurt?" I say, forgetting that, of course she did. She was in the Games like the rest of us, and now she's here, so not only did she get hurt, she got hurt badly enough to die. And yet in my mind, the idea of a twelve or thirteen year old girl getting killed is so very, very wrong, I guess it almost doesn't make sense.

"How? Who?" I don't know if it's the lack of physical activity talking, but I'm suddenly enraged.

"Spear. Mine…got caught in my trap."

Someone else just answered my question, and I realise I've forgotten about the other tribute in here. And from the sound of it, they've been silently set up in the bed next to mine. Head snaps to the left.

Oh you have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.

"What the hell are you doing here, Marvel?"

He sits at an angle, one arm resting over bandages wrapped around his chest, and casts me a weary look, like I'm a mosquito who's just entered the room.

"What d'you think I'm doing here, you moron?"

"Last time I saw you, you were a big-shot Career like the rest of them. What caused this immense fall from glory?" I retort, starting to enjoy this.

"Don't give me that, Speedster. I'm tired…"

At first I think he's just no match for my fighting spirit, but then he physically slumps against his headrest, apparently down for the count. Oh…that was anti-climactic.

"I wouldn't bother picking fights with him, Dan, " says Petri, patting my shoulder good-naturedly. I can feel a slight pressure. "Looks like he hasn't quite emerged from the anaesthetic daze we put him in. I doubt if he'll even remember this for a while."

"Katniss."

"Huh?" I turn my head back to the ceiling, listening to Rue's voice again.

"Katniss got him. With an arrow - she's insanely good at shooting. And it was just when Marvel speared me; I'm guessing that's why we've arrived here at the same time."

"Wow," I say, trying to picture the scenario in my head. Looks like we no longer need to wonder how the hell a girl from Twelve scored an Eleven in her showcase. I kind of want her to win now.

"Well, now that you're both settled," says Smithson cheerily. "Let's get you down to Neurology."

The two doctors start wheeling me out from my bed space, towards the doors. I lie there, half-relieved to be going somewhere, half-stunned at the sudden change. I watch one white ceiling pass into another, dotted every so often with an overhead light.

"Wait a second…did you say Neurology?"

"That's right," says Petri.

"But there's nothing wrong with my brain - tell me there's nothing wrong with my brain…"

"Relax, Dan. I can assure you that, in spite of the fall, you suffered no severe blows to the head. A mild concussion, obviously, but it was really your back that took the worst of the fall."

"And that's exactly why we're taking you to Neurology," chimes Smithson as the elevator doors close in on us. "That branch of medicine doesn't just deal with the brain, you understand, it's the entire nervous system."

"Oh. Okay." I close my eyes in relief at the thought that they won't have to open up my head anytime soon. "So what exactly is going to happen?"

There's a very brief pause, but it's long enough for my heartbeat to pick up the pace.

"It's a treatment which has proven to be fully successful on all our spinal injury patients in the past," supplies Smithson. "You'll only need - how many is it? - two sessions, three tops, before you're fully rehabilitated."

"Awesome. But what do I have to do?"

"Uh…the short answer is to grit your teeth and endure it."

_That doesn't sound good._ When they guide my bed through a final set of doors, and turn it at a right angle so I can see the room fully, I see why.

In the middle of the room is a massive white cylinder, with electric blue arches coiling around the inside. Half of it is made of glass, I'm guessing for observational purposes. Oh boy.

"All it'll be is twenty minutes of very controlled electric-induction therapy," says Petri, sliding my bed in line with the cylinder. With the help of another doctor, I'm eased headfirst into the machine. Now I feel like a test tube specimen.

"What do you mean when you say "induction"?"

"Oh, well, a lot of surveys carried out amongst the public have found that patients feel more reassured by that word, as opposed to the old-fashioned term, "electric shock"," replies Smithson, keying numbers into a computer interface.

"Super," I say. I really shouldn't be afraid, if this is something that's gonna get me back on my feet. And yet I am.

"Okay Dan, here we go," says Petri from my right, turning a dial of some kind before I can even ask for a second to ready myself.

At first there's just a tingle, and the sound of crackling, kind of like plastic. And then I feel it shooting all the way up my spine, cutting into each vertebrae as it goes. My jaw locks itself open, and I can't even make a sound because the pain is so FREAKING STRONG.

And then, just like that, the shock vanishes into some nowhere space, leaving me breathless. Three minutes already? Whoa…

This happens again. And again. And again, until at the end of twenty minutes there's sweat on my brow, I can't really speak, and my teeth won't close together. I'm slowly but smoothly moved back onto my bed, and once out of the claustrophobia of the cylinder, I notice how cold the air in this room is.

"How're you feeling, Dan?" asks Petri, but not in a condescending way. "Enough for one day?"

I nod, but even that exhausts me. Someone pats my head with a dry cloth.

Out in the hallway, heading towards the elevator, the only words I have the energy to listen to are Petri's, telling me that I probably won't feel the effects of the treatment until tomorrow. Just makes me want to sleep more, so tomorrow can get here already.

Before I totally slump, however, my bed is wheeled past an oncoming gurney with another patient stretched out on it, and the sight of her face makes my eyes snap wide open. I'm suddenly very awake, fueled for a moment by confusion and anger.

Clove. Clove with her head in bandages. She's out cold, and I overhear talk of "severe head trauma" she's just been treated for.

Once she passes me, I turn my head to the ceiling. That's two different kinds of shock in one day. As with Marvel, I ask myself why this Career's showed up, when tributes like Thorn are still out there, still at the mercy of the likes of Cato and Thresh. And Katniss.

I arrive back on the empty ward. When I'm left alone to wait for the other tributes to return from physio, I lie on the bed and worry. This is not something I normally do, or like doing, but I can't really help it now - I mean sure, I saw firsthand that Thorn wasn't someone to mess with, and she must be doing something right if she's outlasted the rest of us this far into the Games. But that doesn't stop me from thinking that her nerves are going to end up being her worst enemy, that she'll break down and turn into easy prey for the remaining tributes. And if that happens, then she'll face death while scared and alone. That's a thought that doesn't sit right with me at all.

Except now, I've gotta stop and ask myself something: why?

**Author's Note: ****Okay, I have some awkward news: I'll be offline for 10 days *****ducks to avoid flying objects***** however I will pick up immediately where we've left off after that time. Meanwhile, if you'd prefer to avoid the tedium of scrolling back through fanfic pages to find mine again, then make life easier and put this fic on your Story Alert! **

**Also, reviews make me beam, so please send some my way so I can be even more incentivised to get back to this story asap :^D**


	12. When I Come Around

**Chapter Twelve**

**When I Come Around**

**Author's Note****: Ah, how wonderful to be back - hope you readers out there don't feel too neglected (and if you do, then I'm **_**really epically sorry**_**). To jog your memory, in the last chapter Dan was dealing with some pretty nasty electro-induction therapy for his spine, while Clove finally made it onto the scene, knocked for six. But what's been going on with the others…?**

**Ash**

It's packed here on the Physio Floor: after having only Flint, and sometimes Logan, for company these last few days, it's a bit of a shock suddenly being in the same room as all the other tributes. Well, I say "all", but there are no Careers around as far s I can tell. Cue my relief.

The walls are white - I'm sensing a motif here - and are adorned with a bunch of charts, depicting the nervous system, the human skeleton, and detailed instructions for muscle stretches. There are also various apparatus set up: blue mats, support bars, a treadmill that's mostly for slow speed settings, and…well, actually, that's it. As rooms go, it's pretty understated, and yet I can't help but feel a creeping reminder of the training centre back in the Capitol.

Therefore, I don't like this space. It also doesn't help that I'm currently flat on my back with only harsh fluorescent lights to look at. Or that there's a specialist pushing my leg further past my hipbone than I'm comfortable with. Although he's taking care not to push on my bad ankle too much, I can feel the achilles tendon seizing up in pain from the stretch.

And the worst part? I can't exactly tell him to stop. The only thing I can do is make manic hand gestures which, most of the time, he doesn't even seem to notice. Two agonising minutes later…

"Feel the burn there, Ash?"

_I FELT THE BURN BEFORE MY FOOT WAS OVER MY HEAD, YOU IDIOT._

As if I actually responded with "yes, and it feels great!", he says:

"Super. Let's try the other leg, shall we? Don't want any muscle wastage, now do we?"

'We?' I think you mean _me_, buster. After this, you at least get to go home and have a relaxing cup of coffee (if they can grow it here). I'm the one who's only got a bed with a really stiff mattress to look forward to.

All I can do is smile mechanically. In my head, I'm free to be as much of a grouch as I please. I don't know why I'm losing my patience more easily today, though. Maybe I'm feeling agitated from all this lack of movement, or my inability to speak, or the fact that I'm craving a homemade seafood linguine that I couldn't even eat if I could get my hands on one.

The biggest reason, however, makes itself known every time I turn my head away from the ceiling, careful not to injure my neck further, to see the other tributes in session. They all seem to be progressing - Jackal, the girl who visited us yesterday with Logan, is now taking tentative, but unaccompanied steps between the support bars, her trainer wheeling her stroller just out of her reach in front of her.

As for Logan himself, he's perched on the edge of a divan, which is kind of like a backless couch, letting a middle-aged woman slowly raise his left arm to shoulder height. Despite his facial contortions of discomfort, he is definitely starting to manage without the sling. The neck brace has also been put aside fro this hour, and it makes me remember just how skinny he is - it's as if his neck's been compressed, straightened and stretched into a much longer shape. I watch him gently move his head from side to side, a smile forming on the woman's face.

"Very good, Tom, very good indeed. You're making excellent progress. You keep up these exercises every day, and you'll probably be off the brace and sling as early as two days from now."

"Oh, wow. That's fantastic," he replies, a big grin on his face. I can't stand looking at it.

"Okay, Ash," says my guy, Quex, finally releasing my leg and noting something on a clipboard. "Looks like we've got a while to go. You're certainly going to make a recovery, but those are some deep cuts you've got, so I wouldn't expect to see differences in movement for a good few days, maybe even a week from now."

A week. Well, that's just great, isn't it.

He helps me up by letting me balance on one leg, handing me my crutches which have been resting against the wall. I take them with as little enthusiasm as possible.

"Well, see you next time." And off he goes, blonde hair bobbing out of sight as he leaves the room. Now I have nothing to do.

Feeling morose, I limp over the mats, between supine tributes, towards the women's bathroom. Once in there with the door closed behind me, I shove the crutches into a corner by the sinks, and thud myself against the wall, bad ankle hovering in the air, arms folded.

To my ever-increasing frustration, hot tears come to my eyes. My throat is killing me. I punch the wall behind me with a closed fist, feeling an unquenchable anger at the world, this world where I'm practically immobile, voiceless and purposeless. I've been reduced to an object in a room, and I _hate it_.

I angle my body towards the first mirror on my left, awkwardly, so as not to fall over and make myself even _more_ frustrated, when I catch sight of feet under the nearest cubicle door. I freeze up.

The feet, small and white, are encased in a pair of standard-issue clinic slippers. They're very close to the door, and this freaks me out, because it means that whoever's behind it is just standing there, either spying on me or waiting until I leave. And considering I know that all the tributes, save for Flint and Dan, are in the next room, it also means I have absolutely no idea who this person is - fear of the unknown is the mother of all fears.

In a scenario like this, I'd normally ask who's there, but of course that's beyond my current capabilities. I left my whiteboard and marker on my bed. So all I can do is stand there silently as well, waiting anxiously to see if they'll show themselves.

Cautiously, I take up my crutches again, and swing myself past the cubicle, out of sight until I reach one that's three down. I quietly push open the door with my shoulder, and then reach out and, with a clank, close it again, as if I've gone in.

A pause.

It works - the other cubicle door opens, and the delicate feet take apprehensive steps out.

If my crutches hadn't been slotted against my arms, I would have dropped them with an almighty crash against the tiles. Instead, a strange, strangled cry escapes from my injured throat, which might have otherwise been a high-pitched scream.

The person is painted with scars, deep purple and red, blotchy across almost every inch of their face, neck, hands and arms. The rest of their body is shielded by a white robe, identical to the one I'm wearing, but, in a disturbing contrast, their legs are almost free from these horrific marks - there are one or two, but other than that, they're smooth and pale and thin.

I don't go unseen either. As if I'm the scarier one in the room, the person emits a short, but cutting, shriek of fright, their wounded (and bandaged) fingers flying to their face.

And then, for a few seconds, the two of us just gawk at each other, stunned and disgusted in equal measures. As I take in her long, blonde hair, my mouth forms the echoless word, "Glimmer".

"Don't look at me!" She screeches, obscuring her face with her hands and hunching over, as if trying to make herself vanish. "Go away!"

But I'm way too paralysed by a cocktail of shock, revulsion, and twisted fascination, to go anywhere.

"Oh please, please just leave," she begs, muffled by her hands. "Get out. No one can see me like this."

When she moves her hands away from my face and sees I'm still there, she seems to give up, kicking the floor and leaning against the door frame of her cubicle with her elbows.

"No one can see me like this," she repeats. "Not ever, I can't…you can't…"

Her unfinished sentence hangs in the air as she starts weeping. My face changes expression. I'm totally bowled over by what I'm witnessing: a Career. From District One. In a sterile, clinical bathroom, covered in scars, crying.

A silence passes. Glimmer gets off the doorframe, wipes her eyes furiously, and throws me a vicious look.

"Don't just _stand_ there, damn it! If you're going to stay, will you at least say something! Anything!"

Now it's my turn to cry, apparently. Her words hit me hard, and all the tension I've felt today comes tumbling onto my head like a log. I shudder as the tears come flowing out freely, and I raise a fist to my face to try and stem the flow. I can't even sob properly - all I hear is ragged breathing.

Glimmer looks appropriately perplexed. I put my hand in front of me, crutch still attached, and gesture to my throat, trying to make her understand that I can't speak. Amazingly, she seems to get it:

"What, you can't speak?"

I feel so pathetic. Small nod.

"Oh…why?" she asks, at a lack of anything else to say, and in a slightly uninterested tone.

Holding the crutch further down, I draw it up horizontally, and do my best to mimic the action of throat-slashing. She raises her eyebrow.

"Huh. Who did it?"

My shoulders deflate as I realise miming "Cato" is an impossible task.

"Clove? I bet it was Clove."

I shake my head. Glimmer pauses and pulls a rare thinking face. She wipes her tears again.

"Marvel?"

Another head shake.

"Uh…Thresh? Ooh, was it Katniss? It's just like something she'd do, the little b-"

I manage to interrupt the beginning of her rant with an open-arm gesture that says, _Come __**on**__, it's an obvious answer. Who do you __**think**__?_

"No, wait! Cato?"

_At last._ I nod, as does she. Then a sadness tinges her scarred face.

"That makes sense. He's a killer, born and bred…you know I actually thought, for a second, that he'd go back and save me? I thought, 'I'm one of the Pack, and he likes me. Of course he won't leave me behind.'"

More silence. No more tears come, but I can see her swallow back some kind of lump. To my surprise, and dread, Glimmer actually takes a few steps in my direction. She gives me a hard stare, as if challenging me to look her in the eyes, surrounded by the scars which I now see in more of their hideous detail. I didn't think anything could be worse than Flint's wounds, and yet here's proof right in front of me.

"Do you know how I got these? You know what did this to me?"

I nod slowly, grimacing at the thought of a tracker-jacker swarm. I've only ever seen their picture in old books, and from footage of previous Games, and that's just about all I can handle.

"Katniss Everdeen," she spits bitterly. "If she's in this clinic, I'm giving her hell to pay, once I feel strong enough…is she here?"

I shake my head. With a score of eleven, if Katniss is ever going to show up in this place, it's going to be later rather than sooner. Glimmer looks disappointed to say the least.

"I'll be ready. No one drops a nest of those…those _things_ on a Career Pack and gets away with it."

Now, at no point during the Games did I see Glimmer as a particularly threatening Career. True, she's annoying as hell, but the word "dangerous" has never come to mind. Here, however, alone with her, I see for the first time the cold fire in her eyes, the desire to execute revenge as violently as possible. I feel my pulse start to race.

It doesn't last long, though. Soon she turns away from me and pads along the floor, running her hands carefully through her hair. She stops at one of the mirrors, lets go of her hair, and just stares at her own reflection. It takes a while before she notices my hand waving, gesturing to ask what happened to her fingers. She looks down at them, spread out and ballooned, due to the bandages, as if noticing them for the first time.

"I don't really know. I woke up with them like this. The doctors tell me they're all broken, but they have no clue why. But that's hardly what I'm bothered about the most," she adds dryly, before falling silent again.

Feeling that it's safe for me to do so, I put my crutches to the floor and limp my way towards Glimmer, until I can see my reflection in the same mirror. She closes her eyes and shakes her head in a small movement.

"It's not fair," she mutters with an unusual solemnity. "It is so not fair. I mean, look at you - you can't speak, but at least you still look like yourself…I _wish_ it was the other way round, that I could look like you and you like me. Then I'd stop being a nightmare and start being pretty again."

Wait…did Glimmer, however indirectly, just imply that I was _pretty_? What is happening to life?

"I didn't know you people were all going to be here - I came to this bathroom because someone was cleaning my own. And then I saw the room was full of tributes, so I've been hiding in here for an entire _hour_. I hate it. I hate being alone, I hate that it's only the people I've learnt to despise that are in this clinic…" Glimmer pauses for breath, and looks at herself with self-loathing.

"And I hate myself. Just…just look at me! I used to be the most beautiful girl in the training academy, and all the people in the Capitol said I was radiant, exquisite, pristine. That was my selling point, and everyone loved me for it. And now that's gone, what do I have, huh?"

She whips her head round to face me, genuinely searching for an answer.

"Without my looks, I'm nothing, you hear me? Nothing! I'm a nobody, like you…"

_Um, wow. Thanks._

"…Who's going to love a nobody?" Her voice quietens, and she stares at herself again. "What kind of man is going to love someone who looks like me? I'll be alone for the rest of my life. No one's going to be friends with…with a _freak_."

She runs out of things to say, and just hangs her head over the sink, looking drained. Even if my throat wasn't slit, I wouldn't know what to say.

I can't believe what I'm about to do, but find myself doing it anyway.

I lay my left crutch between two sinks, and reach out my arm. It feels like a weird dream when I awkwardly pat Glimmer's back, like I'm violating some kind of universal rule. That's certainly what her expression seems to suggest - it's not angry, as such, or that repulsed, which I guess can't be a bad thing. But she's not good at hiding her shock, contained in a frown and slightly open mouth.

"…When will they be gone?" she asks, looking away from me. I realise she means the other tributes. To her apparent relief, I remove my arm from her back and check the simple plastic watch (which I requested using my whiteboard) a doctor gave me. The Physio session was due to last for an hour, which ended five minutes ago. I nod as if to say, "yes, they should be gone now."

"Go and check."

She says it flatly, as a queen would say to her servant. I suppose a person can't change all at once.

Nonetheless, I limp over to the door, prop it open a little, and peek through the gap - the room looks empty aside from Logan's trainer, who puts the cap on her pen, picks up a towel from the floor, and walks out of sight. Without looking her way, I motion to Glimmer that the coast is clear. I hear a sigh of relief, and she walks over, taking her own precautionary glance, before swinging the door open.

"Thank goodness. I thought I'd be stuck in that bathroom forever."

I exit the bathroom too, and for a moment we both stand still, exchanging tense glances.

I point to the ceiling and mouth "where?" to her. Glimmer gives me a blank stare. I try again, pointing up, resting my head on my elbow a fraction, to mime sleep, and point to her, repeating "where?"

"Intensive Care," she says reluctantly. "What's it to you?"

All I can do is shrug, implying I'm just curious. She narrows her eyes.

"As far as this…encounter is concerned, it never happened. Right?" she states rather than asks. I nod.

"Good. And I can't be seen with you. Wait here for five minutes, and then you can go back to your room. And since you asked, where's yours?"

Something inside me makes me hesitate - Glimmer is, after all, a Career. I don't want her knowing exactly where I sleep in case she's ever in an assassinating mood. So all I do is point to her. She can know I'm on the same floor, but it's a pretty huge floor, so I doubt she'll be able to find mine and Flint's room easily.

"Oh. I see," she says with an air of disdain. After shifting her weight from foot to foot, she leaves.

"Well, see you around, Four."

As she walks out, I want to shout, "IT'S ASH" to her. A simple fist-waving in the air will have to suffice for now.

Rolling my eyes, I do as she says and wait five minutes, which, due to my impatient mind, actually ends up being something like forty seconds, before heading into the empty elevator and returning to Intensive Care.

When the elevator doors close, it hits me: _What the hell just happened? Was that even real?_

This place is surprising me every day. I close my eyes and resolve to save the puzzlement over these events for when I can't sleep tonight.

In the meantime, I'm going to deliberately ignore Glimmer's demands and tell Flint (and Logan, if he's there too) everything about what I just saw. It's too incredible for me not to, and besides, I still don't like her at all, so why should I keep quiet about this? She still sees herself as above the rest of us, calling us "you people".

And yet, in a way, a part of me feels grateful for the unexpected "encounter", as Glimmer put it. Just an hour ago, I was a piece of furniture, a body with little ability to do anything. But now something's changed - I feel more like a witness, someone who now holds useful and unique information. And that makes me feel a little better.

**Author's Note: So…reviews anybody? :^)**


	13. Changing Perspectives

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Changing Perspectives**

**Author's Note****: Yay for the 9 readers (so far) who saw the new chapter last night - maybe you could also become the 9 reviewers…? *****puppy eyes*******

**Logan**

It would appear Jackal and I have swapped places this evening: she's punching the air with triumph at the sight of chicken soup on her dinner tray. Who knew creamed meat could be so exciting? I, on the other hand, am reluctantly prodding a slice of…whatever this grey stuff is. Next to it is a blob of sticky rice and a sprig of limp parsley. Not impressed.

"Is that tuna?" Jackal asks, peering over at my tray.

"I honestly don't know. It looks like something you'd find at the bottom of the sea."

"Well, yes, that is where fish like to live."

"Are you sure we haven't had our meals mixed up?"

"Nice try, Logan, but this is all mine," she says, cupping her hands around the bowl protectively. I sigh.

Still, at least I feel better in myself - Physio went well today, so much so that I can probably stop wearing this neck brace in a matter of days. I'm also pleased about my shoulder, and the fact that I can move it gently around without wanting to pass out from pain.

But I wonder what'll happen when I fully recover. There'll be no reason for me to stay in this clinic any longer, but then where am I supposed to go? What do I do in this new world? What's my purpose now? These are the questions that have been whirling around my head fast and faster with each night. I can only find reassurance in the likelihood that the doctors here, like Petri and Smithson, will have good advice, having dealt with tributes like me for seventy-four years…that's a very long time.

I grudgingly spoon the rice into my mouth, and twirl the parsley sprig in my fingers, but can't bring myself to eat even one mouthful of the tuna, if it is tuna.

Dr. Petri is the one doing evening rounds before we all settle down for sleep. He lets Jackal know that she'll only need two more dialysis sessions, since her kidneys are healing up "just fine". She looks like she's having the best day ever.

"Evening Tom," he says, coming to my bedside. "How's it all going today?"

"Good, good," I say, rotating my shoulder in its socket and making slow head turns side to side, up and down. "I can't believe how quickly everything's healing. Back home I would have been bedridden for months."

_Although back home I'd probably still be dead._ But I don't let these words take form in the air.

"Well, medicine has certainly come a long way over here since the Dark Days," Petri notes, smiling. "Nonetheless, it makes my job worth doing to see patients like you tell me they feel good, so I'm glad."

I'm just about to bring up the subject of my eventual departure from the clinic, when Petri's communication box, which is clipped onto his coat, goes off.

"Excuse me a minute," he says, turning slightly away, the box to his ear. "Go."

I watch him listen to the person on the other end, and his expression slowly shifts from calm to grave, even shaken.

"Wait…what do you…how long…are you _sure_…? No way…an _aneurysm_? But…but we've never dealt with this before in a tribute, how am I…right, okay…I'll be up there stat…can I get the key details?" He writes something on the back of his clipboard. "Ten…Female…Sixteen…anything else? Oh, man…"

At this point, most of the ward is listening in to Petri's one-sided conversation, which he ends with the press of a button. He stands still for a second, eyes closed, exhaling like he knows he's in for another sleepless night.

"Damn these Games," he mutters, before rushing out of the automatic doors in the direction of the staircase, with no goodbye.

Jackal turns to me, very confused.

"What was that all about? What's an aneurysm?"

I have to blink a few times in an unthinking state before I can respond, before I remember where I've heard that word before.

"It's to do with the brain. I think it's when a blood vessel gets damaged, or is too weak for some reason, and it starts swelling with blood until it bursts, killing whoever has it."

_Just like it killed my mother._ I can still see myself, a little younger, but old enough to have engrained on my memory the sight of my mom in a hospital bed, of a poorer quality than the ones here, having just come out of the operating theatre. There was a tumour in her brain that they'd been trying to remove, and when my dad and I visited, she seemed on the way to recovery. The aneurysm was a "complication". That's how the doctors put it at the time. But it was more than that to me. It came along and ruined everything in our family life.

"Jeez…" breathes Jackal, frowning. "And he said ten…did he mean District Ten?"

I snap my gaze her way. District Ten. Female. Sixteen years old.

"Thorn," whispers Dan for the rest of us. From what I can see of his facial expression, he's completely whitewashed.

My head is reeling as it pieces the facts together: why she was edgy and anxious the whole time, why she looked so sleepless, and why she cried during her interview, so sure she would die in the arena. And she did. There is no possible way she didn't know.

"To think she had to go around shouldering that kind of burden…" I voice my thoughts aloud. "Poor girl."

"Wow," says Jackal.

"Do you think they'll be able to fix her?"

My head turns to the new voice from a bed on my right. Little Rue is up from her resting.

"Well," I begin. "This is by far the best hospital I've ever been in... I'm sure she'll be fine."

"You don't sound too confident about it," murmurs Marvel in a hazy voice from across Rue's bed. Wait. That must be the first time I've noticed he's actually on our ward. I briefly forget everything we've just been talking about.

"Ignore him, Logan," says Rue sleepily. "He's cranky from his operation."

"Lies…" he slurs. Well, some threat you are.

"_People_," says Dan in a cutting tone. "Slightly more pressing concerns here! Logan, you said that this thing kills people. Now I know we've all died at some point, and are here, alive, but if the injury is in her _brain_…I mean, doctors can't do everything, can they? What if they can't fix her? What if she never makes it? What if…she stays dead?"

I have never heard Dan sound this worried.

"Then she stays dead, surely," says Arc. Tact really isn't his strong point.

"Shut _up_," says Dan. Wow, he's getting riled up about this.

I feel like I've just been bombarded with pummels to the chest. I need to get out of here, just for a while. Clear my head.

Before I change my mind, I sweep back the covers, shove on my slippers and grab my clinic robe, the one I wore to Physio.

"Where are you going, Logan?" asks Jackal.

"Upstairs."

In spite of everything, a small chorus of "oooh" follows me out of the doors.

Glad to be out of the ward, I take in a breath of conditioned air and head up to Intensive Care. A quick peek through the blinds of the room tells me that, for once, Flint and Ash are completely by themselves. Just as well, because I need to tell them this revelation about Thorn. After that, I'd love to talk about nothing at all, just little inconsequential things. I've had enough news for one night.

"Logan, you're here!" says Flint from her bed. Her voice is getting clearer every day. "Good, pull up a seat. You will not _believe_ who Ash ran into today."

…Maybe I should have stayed on the ward after all.

Thirty minutes later, after Flint paraphrases everything about Ash's encounter with Glimmer during Physio (I did vaguely wonder where she'd gone), and Ash gives written answers to some questions I ask, I slump against the back of the chair, rendered mute with shock all over again.

"Why is life so strange?" I ask the air.

"Beats me," says Flint. Ash starts writing something on her board. "I keep trying to picture Glimmer crying, but right now it's kind of a conceptual impossibility."

**The thing that really strikes me is how much she was talking about **_**love**_**. Actual love, romantic and from friends. Makes me think there's something under the stuck-up surface. Just a damaged girl.**

"Yeah," says Flint. "But does that go for the other Careers too? Is there anything more to Clove, or Cato, or Marvel, than cold-blooded killing?"

None of us seem to be able to answer that.

**To be honest, I'm not sure what to think anymore.**


	14. Stuck With You

**Chapter Fourteen**

**Stuck With You**

**Author's Note****: I am happy for two reasons: these people! Arcticmist and bluespades reviewed, and therefore they are awesome. You can be too - just type into the Review box at the end of the chapter :^)**

**Dan**

I wake up to smooth, crisp sheets, as usual. They must change these sheets in the night, somehow, with me sleeping in them, because they always stay clean.

The ward is quieter than it normally is during the day, so I guess I've woken up pretty early.

I didn't dream about running last night, for once; instead, I was leaping over the surface of the sun (y'know, as you do) and twisting to avoid balls of fire that would keep coming my way. Terrifying as that may sound in words, it was actually really cool.

And what's weird is, now, my body feels as though it's been through a lot of physical activity, because my muscles are relaxed and more limber than they have been since I got here. It feels like my body's lost a lot of the initial stiffness and can actually breathe…maybe that means the electro-induction stuff is working for me.

To test this theory, with some bated breath, I try sending messages to my fingers, telling them to tap up and down.

…I'm doing it. _I'M DOING IT_.

And it's not just my fingers I can move - I feel the muscles and joints in my arms and elbows coming to life, arteries pumping blood around them as they start to work their way out from under the sheets.

Wishing every second that this isn't just another dream I'm going to wake up from, I lift my hands to the ceiling, spreading them out in front of my face. Each finger feels its own stretch, like it's embracing movement, and life, anew.

Corny as it is, this sight makes me want to weep. But I let a giddy grin take over my face, promising myself never to take mobility for granted again.

Wide awake now, and full of zest for life, my hands explore the outside of the bed. I feel the shape of the rails and their cool steely metal. I run my fingers over the woven fabric of my sheets and mattress, pinch the puffy corners of my pillows, until they close around the control panel of buttons just to the right of my head. I haven't had a chance to use this yet…

Like a kid who's just been given a new toy, I bring the panel out on its cord to face me, look for the button labeled "Incline", and press it. The beautiful sound of smooth mechanical whirring kicks in, and the stark white ceiling with the skylight gives way to the ward at eye-level, which I'm now seeing for the first time.

I get a brief but exciting overview of identical beds, most of them behind white curtains; clean white floor; various robes on the backs of chairs and slippers peeking out from under the beds. Compared to my view for the last few days, this is like a piece of art.

Except then I feel this huge spike of pain shoot from halfway down my spine, and I have to press the "Stop" button immediately. Ow ow ow ow need to fix this need to fix this…Ohhhkay that's better.

Holding down the "Decline" button for just a second is enough to make the pain disappear, and I lean further back into my pillows with a sigh of relief. I guess it would have been too much to hope for that, at this stage, both halves of my body would be ready to move around.

Just as I'm returning the control panel to its original place, I hear a murmur, from a voice I can't recognise, filled with haze but also loathing:

"What the _hell_ is this."

Startled, I turn forward again. The bed opposite mine is free from curtains, revealing a small figure with a heavily bandaged head. They don't look at all pleased to see me.

Oh no.

My face stretches itself into an expression of shock and…well, more shock. I glance around my bed: a dozing Marvel on my immediate left, and now Clove immediately in front of me.

"You _cannot_ be serious," I say loudly, unintentionally causing one or two curtains to open along their rails.

"Where am I? Why am in a bed, and _why_ is everything so muffled?" whines Clove, hands flying to her ears, which are snugly fitted underneath her bandages. As she feels the fabric encasing her entire head, her face starts to look a lot like mine.

"What happened." This is a statement as opposed to a question, apparently. She notices all the other beds. "Who are all these people…? Marvel?"

Clove stares at the only other Career on the whole floor. At the sound of his name, he stirs from his heavy sleep. At first he doesn't seem to remember who she is, but then a flash of recognition shoots across his eyes like a meteor.

Now, because they're both Careers, I wasn't exactly expecting them to break out into sobs and bear-hug each other, but I also wasn't expecting Marvel to pause, slowly smirk, and start cackling like a madman. Clove looks furious, but then again, she always does.

"What are _you_ laughing about, Chuckles?"

"Oh, this is too good...do…do you really remember nothing about your own death?" he replies, barely able to contain himself. Maybe he's reveling in her failure to overshadow the fact that he lost before she did.

For a moment, Clove looks as if she hasn't got a clue what Marvel's talking about, but I can see it dawning on her face - she died.

"Wait, but…but…what?" I've never heard her sound so confused. "That's impossible. I'm not dead, I'm right here, you moron!"

"As am I."

In a moment of absolutely fantastic comic timing, Logan pushes the button to reveal himself from behind his own curtain. Clove has been slotted in between him and Rue, which means she's right up close to the guy she watched getting strangled. She yelps in surprise.

"What? But…but I saw you. I _saw you_ drown! SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING!"

Her shrieking does a good job of waking all the other tributes. Some of them are so frightened of her (ie the ones she must have killed) that they sweep their curtains back in front of them by hand.

"Jeez, woman, calm yourself," says Marvel coolly. "I'll give you the lowdown: you died. Docs brought you back to life. Now you're here with the rest of 'em, plus me. Games are still going on but don't know what's happening because we're on a different planet altogether, Neutrino -"

"Neutron," Logan and I correct at the same time, Logan's tone sharper than mine.

"Whatever. Point is, you're here. So are we. Nothing to do about it. Details will follow soon. Deal with it."

With that, he flops back down onto his pillows and goes back to sleep. Clove looks like she's just been asked to marry a lemon. She closes her eyes, one hand frozen in mid-air, as if her brain's taking a minute to process all this new information.

"Ok…ok, I will deal with all of…that…later. I still want to know why I'm within spitting distance of scum like you," she says, narrowing her eyes at me, Logan, Rue, and Jackal, who's just woken up and has bed hair.

"What, you're still too high and mighty for us?" I say.

"I thought that was obvious from the beginning," she replies icily. Then her frown disappears, and her eyes move from side to side. "…Did he say I died?"

"_Yes_," I respond, exasperated.

"But that would mean I lost."

"Well…yeah. I thought that was obvious from the beginning," I say, not bothering to hide my smirk. She looks torn from the inside.

"I lost…but I never lose. How could I have let myself slip up?" she asks, but I don't know whether to herself or to everyone else.

"Well," says Rue, who seems to have woken up without anyone noticing. "You're the only one who would remember what happened. How are we supposed to know?"

Clove is struck dumb by this simple question. Her eyes start darting around again. She's trying to recall her memories, but it doesn't look like it's going too well.

As she thinks, I can't stop myself from staring at her hands. They've developed this weird kind of twitching in the last two minutes, her thin but powerful wrists twisting over and over again, very quickly. It's like she's short-circuited or something.

Logan picks up on this like a mind-reader:

"What is up with your hands?"

Clove looks at them, and although the twitching subsides a little, her wrists continue to go at it. Her eyes tell me this is nothing new.

"I need knives," she says flatly. "Like, badly."

"You can forget it," I snap. "After what you did to Flint, I wouldn't let you near a butter knife."

"Flint. Who the hell is Flint?"

"Wow, so you're both sadistic and an idiot. _Flint_ _Verdasa _, District Six, the one you all but chopped into pieces. There's killing to survive, and then there's _that_. I mean…" I shake my head, not wanting to finish the sentence. I banish the flashback from my mind.

"Oh yeah, that's right…that's what you were so mad about."

"Damn right I was mad. Even decapitation would have been better than what you put her through. I can't remember a single part of her that _didn't_ have a knife wound. It was the most terrible thing I've ever seen in my life."

A pause, and then Clove gives a nod, as if attempting to picture it in her head.

"That gruesome, huh? Sounds like me at my best."

"You sicken me."

"Oh, get off your high horse, Dash -"

"_Dan_."

"Like I care. I can't even remember doing it, let alone stopping to think about design layouts. I mean give me a _break_ - I'd just had a nest full of tracker-jackers dropped onto my head. Do you really think I was of _sound mind_ in there? From what people keep telling me, and from what I _can't_ remember, it was an accident."

"Still doesn't change what you did."

Clove waves her hand at me as if to say, "I'm bored with talking to you now", and yanks her bed curtain around to total obscurity by hand. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I don't like getting angry, but when I do, whoa boy…

"Oh, hey look at that!" exclaims Meliss, from Marvel's left. "You're sitting up. Good for you!"

Oh yeah. I forgot about that.


	15. Patience Is Tricky

**Chapter Fifteen **

**Patience Is Tricky**

**Author's Note****: Okay, I'm officially deeming Arcticmist **_**doubly**_** awesome because she/he reviewed twice in a row. Gold star.**

**Flint**

Today is a very promising day. Know why? I was informed early this morning by Dr. Smithson, doing her daily, bubbly rounds, that I'm well enough to be out of bed. Not that I'll be running, hopping and skipping anytime soon, though, no way. I'll still be confined to a wheelchair, but frankly at this point _anything_ would be better than this same old bed for yet another day.

I feel, dare I say it, excited, when a nurse wheels the chair in for me and parks it at my bedside. I know they'll only let me go around in it after lunch, but it looks so inviting just sitting there.

"How about it, Ash?" I ask between (my own) mouthfuls of carrot soup. "Wanna hobble by my side, look around the place?"

She pauses mid-swallow, of puréed mash that looks a lot like the stuff I had to endure, and glances at her crutches, which are lying across the seat of a nearby chair. She seems reluctant.

"What's the matter? A walk sound too strenuous for you?"

She shakes her head and reaches for her whiteboard. I swear, that thing makes conversations go about five times slower. But as always, I get on with eating and wait as patiently as is within my limits for her to finish squeaking away.

**It's not that - I just find the crutches a bit annoying. Get tired easily, only so much limping/clattering I can take. Do you think I could ask for a chair too?**

"Go for it, if that's what you want. The nurse'll be back soon to get the lunch trays; ask her then."

**Could you do it? Kind of hard to make myself heard with silent words.**

Huh. That almost sounds poetic, like it has some deeper meaning. In any case, I agree. Fifteen minutes pass, and the regular nurse comes back. She raises an eyebrow at Ash's request when only one of her ankles is moderately injured, but eventually acquiesces; soon another chair, exactly like mine, is brought in. Ash thanks the weary nurse with a wordless, gleaming smile. Reminds me all too well of her confident, easygoing interview with Caesar Flickermann. It astounds me, really, how even after all the torture we've been through, this girl is still, at the end of the day, capable of being who she always has been.

Makes me wonder if I'm still the same, or if I've changed. And if so, for better or worse.

Before I can think any further about this, it's time for my first excursion. The nurse pulls back my covers, waits for me to slowly, stiffly turn myself until I'm on the edge of the bed, and then helps to ease me into the chair.

Tiny needles of pain hit me where my scars are, and I wince a little, but once I'm firmly settled in the leather seat, everything feels better.

Before leaving us to get on and do our own thing, the nurse holds the door open for Ash and me. I should probably learn her name at some point.

My arms are strong enough to push the wheels forward a little bit at a time, and although maneuvering myself takes a few minutes to get used to, within no time at all, Ash and I are out of the room at last, rolling down the hallway side by side. I can feel the air currents move differently out here in comparison to the room, and it's so refreshing to drink them in. For the first time since I got here, I'm in a good mood.

"So, where do you wanna go?"

Ash is balancing her whiteboard and pen on her knees, but doesn't look as if she can be bothered to use them - all I get is a light shrug.

"You?" she mouths.

"Don't know," I reply, sweeping the various doors with my eyes. "I'm just glad to be out of bed at _long last_. Let's just see what we can find. Roll with the flow."

Ash looks at me weirdly - she knows I should mean either "roll with the punches" or "go with the flow", but she gets it well enough. We smile.

There's not a whole lot to see, if I'm being honest - most of the blinds in people's rooms are shut, and we're too low down to peep through the door windows. A few doctors bypass us, some in serious, coded conversation, others pulling along trolleys packed with pill dispensers.

And then something interesting happens: I see Dr. Petri at the end of the hall, waiting for the elevator to arrive. He's taking off his white coat in a hurry, folding it over his arms, leaving him in a pair of blue…whaddya call them…scrubs. He looks anxious.

"Hey, Dr. Petri," I say. Ash and I wheel to a halt next to him. Boy does he look exhausted.

"Oh, Flint, Ash," he says, suddenly distracted from his…distraction. "Good to see you guys up and out of bed. Always a positive sign."

"What's going on?"

"Hm? Oh, I just got a radio in; apparently another tribute's arriving."

He's got our attention.

"Really? Who?"

"I didn't get the name, but I think he's District Eleven. Doesn't sound too labour-intensive for me and the Operating team, just some broken bones and a stab wound to the lung. I'm guessing someone fought him, then left him out in the open to die slowly."

The elevator doors ping open, and he steps right in.

"Of course, I can't be sure of anything until I get up there and have a look. See you two later."

The doors close on him, and Ash and I glance at one another.

"Man, I know exactly who he's talking about, but I can't remember his name."

**Thresh. Big, silent and scary.**

"Got that right," I say. "But if _he's_ out of the Games, then…well, things are down to the wire."

We get to a fork in the hallway, but the signs aren't particularly helpful in terms of deciding which way to go: to the left are "Rooms 17-29" and to the right are "Rooms 30-45". I would toss a coin, but of course, lacking any kind of money, I can't.

"Decisions, decisions, decisions…" I mutter, before wheeling to the right, for no special reason. Ash follows me.

I don't know why, but this wing of the floor has its own kind of silence - where our room is, you can always hear the background noise of murmured conversations, beeping monitors, humming tram rails, that kind of stuff. But here, I can only hear my breathing. Everything feels muffled and mute, and it unsettles me.

We pass by rooms 30 through to 36 without any kind of window into what's happening inside.

And then I stop outside Room 37, next to its left window. Ash almost collides with the back of my chair, and I hear her screech the handbrakes.

I see her face reflected in the window's darkened glass, next to my own. We both stare silently at it, and I am shocked into speechlessness by two things.

For one thing, this is the first time I've had the opportunity to see my own face. Absent-mindedly I run a hand over the huge, glaring scar on the bridge of my nose, not quite believing that the person I'm looking at is the same person I am. It's like a bridge has finally been established between my body and my mind, my self. And it's horrifying.

On top of that, on the other side of glass is Thorn, stretched out on a white bed, with a doctor noting down data from a heart monitor. Judging by the steady peaks and troughs of the electric line, at least we know she's alive.

"We should go in," I say after a while.

Being closer to the door, Ash extends an arm and taps hesitantly on it. I watch the doctor turn away from Thorn and come to answer it. I recognise her - Dr. East, I've seen her come and supervise me a few times during the days and nights.

"Can I help you?" she says neutrally, looking down at the two of us. I lean back slightly and incline my head.

"Hi. Can we, uh, come in? Like…is it okay to visit Thorn?"

Dr. East opens her mouth without speaking, and casts a backwards glance at her patient.

"Well…"

"We can always come back some other time, if now's not good…"

"Uh, no, no, I think that's alright. I can't see a problem with that. Although, since you're both in wheelchairs, I warn you it'll be a tight fit around the bed."

"Oh, we don't mind," I say quickly. Ash shakes her head to contribute to this point.

"Alright then," she replies, backing away to let us through the door. "Come in."

Ash wheels herself in, and I follow. We park ourselves on either side of the bed as East gently shuts the door.

Silence falls like a curtain of willow leaves as the three of us regard Thorn, totally still, eyes closed. I both do and don't want to look away.

The dark circles that always seemed to permanently tint her eyes have grown darker still. An oxygen tube disappears up her nose, and an IV drip is inserted into the back of her left hand. Only a few strands of limp, mousy hair escape from the bandages that are wrapped around her head, and her skin, from face to arms, is so pale it's shiny. Her left shoulder is encased in a blue sling.

There's also a second tube that runs from her right forearm, and it connects to a circular glass ring, inside which swishes and churns a disturbingly red liquid, lit by three differently coloured buttons. A third tube comes out from the machine, and threads under the skin of Thorn's neck.

"What is that thing?" I ask, breaking the silence.

"Oh, that's a blood-washing device."

I whip my head around to face Dr. East.

"_Blood-washing_?"

"Yes. Essentially what it does is extract red blood cells and platelets from the veins as they flow down the bloodstream, filter out any toxins while in the machine, and send them back, thoroughly cleansed, to continue circulating the body."

"I see…" I say, feeling more than a little nauseous. "But I don't get it. From what I was told, the thing that killed Thorn was in her brain, not her blood."

"You're referring to the aneurysm? Yes, that was the cause of death. But even after our neurologists spent a marathon twelve hours repairing the burst blood vessel and replacing it with a synthetic one - all without damaging the other parts of the brain, might I add - we had to hook her up for a blood wash. The wound in shoulder just there is quite substantial, so it became infected, to the extent that she got blood poisoning."

"Jeez…" I breathe, at a lack of anything better to say.

"It's quite extraordinary, really," East muses. "We calculated this morning that she must have been wandering around for almost twenty-four hours with that infection. I can't say I would have lasted that long myself."

I'm stunned, impressed and deeply sorry all at the same time.

"Wow. That's tough. And yet…here she is. Alive."

"Well," East's tone becomes more solemn. "Only in the technical sense of the word. Your friend Thorn is in a deep-set coma. All that damage has knocked her immune system flat, so, if she does wake up, it could take anything from days, to weeks, even years."

"If?" I repeat, turning my wheels to fully face East.

"At this stage, we simply can't know anything more. I'd only be speculating if I gave you a specific time frame, and frankly, it's unclear what kind of condition she'll be in when she eventually wakes up, or if she'll ever wake up at all."

I look at Ash from across the bed. She looks as downhearted as I feel.

"Well…" I sigh, moving forward towards the door. "Thank you for letting us see her."

"You're quite welcome," replies East, opening the door for me. Ash starts wheeling out behind me. "I'll have someone update you if her condition changes."

"Thanks."

And she closes the door. Without needing to say anything, Ash and I roll our way back in the direction of our room. I suddenly feel tired, especially in the midst of all this lack of noise.

There's also a word that keeps playing over in my head: "friend". That's what Thorn is to us, according to East. And I wonder if that's true. Is one night and morning in the middle of an arena, fearing for your life, enough time to spend with someone before you can count them as a "friend"?


	16. The Distance Between Us

**Chapter Sixteen**

**The Distance Between Us**

**Author's Note****: Thank you to the awesome Noctsire for reviewing :^) Hope all you other readers out there are taking note!**

**Ash**

So the staff here have decided that I'm well enough to be transferred to the main ward.

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this. I mean, yeah, on the one hand the extended company will be welcome, and I have been looking forward to a change of scenery in this sterile place.

On the other hand, Flint will be alone again. Sure, it's not like we've become inseparable sisters in the time I've shared her room, but I can tell easily enough that she's at least appreciated there being another person around.

There's also the matter of which tributes will be there; If I'm stuck right next to Marvel or Clove, someone is going to get an earful.

It's a pretty short journey from the Intensive Care Floor to the main tribute ward, but I still choose the wheelchair from yesterday over my crutches. It makes everything a whole lot smoother.

"You better come back and visit," says Flint from her bed, watching me hop over to the chair with my whiteboard and marker. "Use Logan as the benchmark."

**In that case, I'll be seeing a lot of you.**

A smile tugs at her mouth, and she blushes, which basically never happens. I get comfortable in the chair, and get to the edge of the door, which has been left open for me.

**Anyway, take care. Will be back before you know it.**

"Tell all the good ones I say hi."

I nod. She means people like Logan and Dan. And that girl Jackal too, I suppose. Oh, and Rue! I know she's here. I feel genuinely eager to see them.

I propel myself down the hallway, towards the elevator, when I pause next to the rare sight of an open door. Room 15. I can see the back of Dr. Smithson's blonde head.

"I understand this is difficult for you," she says reasonably to whoever's in there. "But we have a very high turnover at this clinic, which means other patients in more sensitive conditions will need to occupy this room from now on."

"But I _am_ in a _sensitive condition_, as you seem to have forgotten," replies a familiar, highly strung voice. "I am not going down there, and you can't make me."

I roll my eyes. How can someone who's always portrayed herself as someone so womanly be such a child?

I scribble something on my whiteboard and rap on the wood of the open door. The two blondes turn their attention to me.

**Mind if I intervene?**

"Ashes," says Smithson with considerable relief. "Please, do. I've been here for the best part of ten minutes and Ms. Noble still won't transfer."

With that, she walks off, but only to lean against the wall on the other side. I can totally sympathise with the need to get some breathing space after ten minutes with Glimmer.

Doing my best not to look too condescending, I wheel myself further into the room, and start writing again. Glimmer watches me from the window with her arms folded over her clinic clothes. They're pretty much the scrubs that the doctors wear here, but in white as opposed to blue.

**What are you so afraid of?** I ask outright.

"You know what. They're going to stare at me, laugh at me. I'll be a joke."

A pause, and then Glimmer asks, with great anxiety:

"Who are the other Careers down there?"

**Marvel and Clove as far as I know.** She winces.

"Exactly! They're going to rip me to shreds."

**Not in the literal sense, though.**

"This is so not funny."

**Look, either way, they both lost the Games. There's only so much teasing they can do.**

"…I guess," she concedes.

**And to put it bluntly, you're leaving this room either by your own free will or by the doctors sedating you and then ****dragging**** you out. Your choice.**

Glimmer's arms remain folded, and she taps her foot to signal that this is an agonising decision for her. I wait, and then write something that I hope will tip the balance.

**I'll go with you - if you push my chair, there'll be less attention on you when we get there. Deal?**

"Less _bad_ attention, right?"

**YES.**

"Okay fine, deal. Before I change my mind."

I allow myself a satisfied smile, and turn my wheels around to get out of the room. With a check that the coast is clear, Glimmer pads out after me. Smithson, still leaning against the wall, looks impressed.

"Two minutes? You only needed _two minutes_ - I should use you more often."

**No problem** I hold up facing away from me, as Glimmer apprehensively starts pushing me to the elevator. I press the "18" button, and we're out of the elevator again in a matter of seconds. There are wide glass doors just to the right of it, saying in blue letters 'Ward 841". They have over _eight hundred and forty one _wards? This place is even bigger than I thought.

"Oh no. Oh no. Oh dear. I can't do this," babbles Glimmer. Instinctively, as if she were Thorn and not a Career, I reach backwards and clasp my hand around hers. It's an awkward position to be in, but I tilt my head backwards and stare at her as if to say, "Stop being ridiculous. Yes you can."

She gulps, and wheels me forward. I see the glass approaching us, and for a second I catch the reflection - what an odd couple we are.

It doesn't occur to me that the doors are automatic, so when they open, I jump ever so slightly in my chair, and immediately hope no one saw it.

As I expected, all eyes are on us…and there are a lot of eyes in this ward. Compared to Intensive Care, this room feels ten times as big. I look around at faces I can't remember, faces I recognise, and faces I'm thoroughly glad to see.

"Oh wow, hi," says Dan from a few beds down on the left. His signature grin breaks out on his face, which looks more gaunt than I remember. Still, he's there, sitting up in bed, alive.

**Miss me?** I write, smiling back, and unconsciously trying to divert attention away from Glimmer, although I can hear more than one hushed gasp at the sight of her.

I turn around slightly and nod encouragingly - _go on_, I say with my eyes. _You're here now. Just find your bed and ignore everyone else_.

With shifty eyes, Glimmer reluctantly lets go of my wheelchair handles, folds her arms, shrugs her shoulders up towards her ears, and shuffles over to one of two empty beds that have been made up for us.

Meanwhile, I move closer to Dan's bedside. At first I don't know whether a hug would be too inappropriate or awkward, but that's what he seems to be going for, so we embrace as friends for a few seconds.

**Wow, I haven't seen you since… **I do a one-shouldered shrug.

"How about we don't dwell on that too much?" he says good-naturedly. "How've you been? How was Intensive Care?"

**Oh, you know, intense** I write, scouting out my bed and wheeling over to it. I pass by Clove and Marvel, who are almost opposite each other. I can feel their unwelcoming glares on my back, but I don't let it bother me.

My bed is next to Rue's, and we exchange waves and friendly smiles. She knows I'm no threat. Not to an innocent like her.

In one swift motion, I place my hands on the bed, lift myself out of the chair and pivot onto the mattress. Doesn't feel any stiffer than my old one upstairs.

**So…** I scrawl on my board, all too aware of the surrounding silence. **This is nice. Hi Logan, Jackal.**

"Hi Ash," they respond in unison, like chirpy neighbours.

"I really want one of those," says Jackal, transfixed by my whiteboard. "It's so _cool_."

**I know, isn't it?**

"By the way, Ash," says Dan. "This is my partner tribute, Meliss." He indicates a familiar, small freckled blonde girl on his right. She gives a shy wave.

**Hi** I write. My eyes land on the Careers, and I sigh inwardly. I suppose I will at some point actually have to acknowledge their existence, so might as well get it over with now.

**Clove. Marvel.** I nod, expressionless.

"Ash." Well, at least Clove has finally put a name to a face. I guess that's something. Marvel nods curtly, but says nothing. He's too distracted by Glimmer, now in the bed next to his. She sits on the sheets, knees drawn up to her chest.

"Hey Glimmer," he says. She summons up a bit of courage before turning her face to his. I can't tell what she's expressing more of - suspiscion, bitterness, or...delight.

"Hey Marvel. Long time no see."

It takes me a moment to figure out why there's so much tension between the three Careers right now. But then I remember why Glimmer needed the blood wash: she was killed by tracker-jackers. And they were all there when it happened. I recall the words she said with such a sense of betrayal…

_You know I actually thought, for a second, that he'd go back and save me?_

Guess that sentiment doesn't just apply to Cato. I seriously need to diffuse this tension. It's driving me crazy.

Although, Glimmer says something else, so I don't have to:

"Go on then."

She's looking hard at Clove.

"What?"

"I said go on. Get it out of your system. Laugh at me, point at me and say "oh, Glimmer, where are your good looks now?" I know that's what you're thinking."

I raise my eyebrows. Glimmer's being unusually bold this morning. Clove just gives a small chuckle, as if resigning herself to something.

"Please. In case you haven't noticed, I'm practically bald under here." She points to her bandaged head. "If I made fun of you, it'd only be self-defeating, and therefore nowhere near as fun. Not worth it."

"Oh. Good." Glimmer taps her fingers on her knees, not sure where to look now.

**Thresh is here, by the way** I write, hoping to prevent another uneasy silence. Rue gasps.

"Oh. Really? When did you see him?"

**Well, I didn't actually **_**see**_** him, but I passed Dr. Petri yesterday and he was on his way to operate.**

"Seriously?" says Dan. "Man, I thought he'd make it right into the top…uh…hey, wait a minute, how many tributes are left now?"

We all stop and think to ourselves, trying to see who can work it out the fastest.

"Well, there are sixteen of us here," Logan says.

**Flint & Thorn are on Intensive Care** I write, to which Dan sits up further, alert.

"Thorn? S-she pulled through? She's alright?"

**…They didn't tell you?**

"No, all we heard was something about an aneurysm. Logan had to explain what it was."

"What's an ane…an aneur…what is that?" asks Glimmer.

"Burst blood vessel in the brain," Logan says concisely. She looks horrified.

**I saw her yesterday** I write, suddenly in the position of one with valuable information again. Dan's about as far forward as he can lean.

**With Flint** I elaborate. **We were exploring the rest of our floor and…are you sure you want to hear this?**

"Yes," replies Dan without skipping a beat.

**Well** I continue. **Dr. East says she's "technically" alive, but the outlook's kind of blurry. She had to have a blood wash because a shoulder wound got infected. **I close my eyes, trying to burn away the image of that creepy machine. **And she's in a coma. Even they don't know when she'll wake up, or if there might be anything else wrong with her. Really sad.**

I just didn't need to put that last part - of course it's sad. That just sounds so simplistic.

Dan sighs back into his pillows, his eyes looking very downcast.

"That's terrible," says Rue from beside me. "I just hope she's not in too much pain."

**I don't think so** I write, even though I have no idea what I'm talking about. **It's a coma. Must just feel like a really prolonged sleep.**

"Yeah," adds Glimmer wistfully. "Just as well. Blood washes are awful. They suck. Never again."

She shudders, and I feel the need to change the subject back again.

**But anyway, we were counting tributes. So...17 with Flint & Thorn. Thresh is either due to join them or come to this ward. 19.**

"No, twenty," says Logan. "You forgot to count yourself."

**Oh yeah. Oops.**

"So that leaves four tributes in the arena," says Clove. We turn to her. I'm going to have to get used to her being there all the time. Great. "Cato…" she begins.

"…Katniss," continues Rue.

"Peeta," Meliss pipes up.

"Okay, so who's the fourth one?" asks Marvel. No one seems to remember. But then I catch a glimpse of another tribute, a few beds up from Dan. He looks incredulous that no one else has got it. What district is he from…? Five. Who's the

**VIXEN!**

"_Thank you_," says the male tribute in exasperation. Marvel affixes me with a blank stare, much like Glimmer's.

"Who the hell is - _oh_. Oh wait…" he looks positively amused. "The Fox girl is called _Vixen_?" He descends into hysterics. "Oh, that's priceless!"

**Pretty much my reaction. **

"Didn't she get, like, a Five in training?" asks Glimmer. "How does someone with a Five stick around in the arena for so long?"

**I know how** I scribble, quickly and acrimoniously. **Manipulation.**

"Manipulation," reads Rue as I hold out the board for as many people to see as possible. "What do you mean? What did she do?"

I exhale. It could be anyone's breath. I think I may have forgotten what my own voice sounds like.

**You think I just wandered into the clearing & asked for my throat to be slit?**

It gets the shock value I wanted. Clove and I hold steely gazes for a while before, unexpectedly, she looks away first.

"I guess I did think, afterwards, that it was incredibly convenient, you getting tossed right onto our path. Didn't have to hunt or anything. One tribute, ready to order," says Clove, smiling a little at the memory. I growl inwardly.

"So how'd she do it?"

**Led Thorn & me to clearing - said was in search of food. Then took out a knife and gashed my ankle (already burnt, so OWCH). Pushed me into clearing. You know the rest.**

"The little bi-"

"Still," Rue interrupts Jackal's (fairly accurate) outburst. "Manipulation can only get you so far. I mean, Katniss is really tough, and smart, and fast. And Peeta's strong. We all saw him during training."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," says Clove with a dismissive wave. "But we all know Cato's going to be the Victor. Am I right in assuming he did in most of the people on this ward?"

There are lots of sheepish looks from the other tributes. Dan folds his arms and says nothing. Meliss grimaces. But Clove is looking specifically at me when she says this. I can't let the memory get to me…I can't.

**How can you be so sure?**

"Of course I'm sure! Are you blind? I personally think it'd be more interesting to talk about who's going to take second place: Girl on Fire or Loverboy?"

"Katniss will win," says Rue calmly, full of certainty. "After all, she was the one who destroyed your supplies."

"She destroyed the supplies?" Marvel and Glimmer exclaim together, before looking at one another.

**Not to mention she also dropped that nest on your heads.**

"With my help!" chimes in Rue with a glint of pride. Upon seeing the Career's livid expressions, however, she shrinks back.

"I mean…she did? Really? I had no idea…" Then she looks at the ceiling and starts whistling a four-note tune to herself. I'm liking this girl more and more every minute.

I can't resist writing what I do next:

**Looks like the odds might just be in ****her**** favour, don't you think?**

"Oh, shut up," drawls Clove.


	17. Before I Fall To Pieces

**Chapter Seventeen**

**Before I Fall To Pieces**

**Author's Note****: Okay, I'm just going to get this out of my system before getting down to the serious business of writing: I love being a Londoner, because we ROCKED the opening ceremony! One of the best performances of anything I have seen in my relatively short life. :^D**

**In other news… bluespades must be declared **_**triply**_** awesome because, yes, they reviewed three times :^)**

**Logan**

I wake up this morning and feel, for the first time since the Games began, that my night's sleep went by almost completely untroubled. Having recently been weaned off my neck brace, I'm finding leaning back into my pillows much more comfortable. It also helps that I don't wake up moaning if I accidentally turn over onto my injured shoulder anymore.

Yes, I've decided today will be a good one. I yawn, stretch the stiffness out of my bad shoulder, and press the button to draw back my curtain. It's something I never really get bored of watching.

I wave good morning to the attendant who wheels the breakfast trays into the ward, as well as the other tributes who are awake. The only ones still asleep are Clove, Ash and Glimmer. I know this because the attendant pulls back their curtains for them, and quietly slides their meals onto their side tables, not wishing to disturb. He seems like a rather peaceable person.

It's buttery, cinnamon toast and apple slices for me today. How far I've come from the liquidised vegetables and protein shakes.

As I tuck in, trying not to munch too loudly, I can't stop myself from observing the three girls as they sleep in their own different ways. It's fascinating, you might say - Clove has the covers bunched up just at her waist, her fist clenching air (presumably she dreams about knives), and her small frame is scrunched up in a ball. With all those white bandages on her head, it's difficult for me not to see her as a lump of toilet paper.

At least her face looks neutral, with only the slightest frown line pinching at her skin. Other than that, she almost looks…tranquil, strange as it sounds.

Ash, further on my right, sleeps facing the ceiling, still as a coffin. One arm is lying flat by her body, while the other is at a right angle to her head, propped up on the pillows. Her face seems relaxed enough, but I get the sense this isn't a position she's used to sleeping in. It only makes sense, though, considering the wounds still under the bandages around her neck. Wouldn't want to twist it to the side suddenly, otherwise the nurses would have some serious scrubbing to do.

Glimmer is sleeping on her side with her back to the rest of the ward, but it looks like she's got both hands under her head. From this angle, you'd have no idea she was so scarred.

The influx of morning sunlight is bringing her out of sleep; she stirs, shields her eyes from the bright rays, and turns over to face the rest of us.

"Morning," I say automatically. The expression on her squinting face tells me Glimmer can only remember who I am after a whole five seconds of sweeping her memory.

"Oh, morning," she replies softly, smoothing down her hair. She looks down at her tray and cocks her head to the side, as if trying to work out the picture a puzzle will eventually form.

"Is this for me?"

"No, it's for the other person in your bed," quips Marvel, before adding: "Morning."

"Oh, right. Yeah. Being here's made me forget that hospitals give you free food," she says, spearing a grape with her fork.

After five minutes, Clove wakes up, surveys the room with her dark, perpetually deadpan eyes, blinks a few times, and eats her breakfast without a word. I think it's safe to infer she's not a morning person.

It's another ten minutes before Rue decides it would be a good idea to gently poke Ash's arm until she wakes up, momentarily disoriented. Then she remembers having switched locations, and sits up, rubbing her eyes.

"Your eggs are getting cold," says Rue.

Like it's now second nature, Ash reaches for her whiteboard before doing anything else, even though she doesn't then go on to write anything. She inspects said eggs, prods them with her fork, before pulling a face and cobbling them off to the side of her plate.

Conversation post-breakfast is, as usual, about nothing in particular. Most of us can't be bothered to project our voices all the way across the ward, so I've got into a routine of only speaking to people who are close: Jackal, Dan, Rue, Meliss, and now Ash. Unfortunately, this also includes the three Careers. Marvel and I do our best to ignore each other's existence as much as possible, before a shouting match erupts, or worse.

Half an hour later, I feel like doing my daily excursion around the clinic (or at least the parts of the clinic I know).

"Going for a walk?" asks Jackal.

"Yep. Feel like joining me?"

"Meh. I heard a new stack of papers and magazines are arriving today, so I think I'll wait around and see if that's true."

"Suit yourself."

"I'll go with you."

I'm not the only one to cast a look of surprise Glimmer's way.

"What?" she says defensively. "I'm bored. And I like walking; it was the only thing to do when I was on my own."

"Really?" I say. "All that time wandering around Intensive Care and I never saw you?"

"Well, obviously I went when the hallways were empty," she explains, blushing. "You think I wanted to be seen?"

"…Fair enough."

"So it's not a problem. Walking."

"Uh, no…can't see any reason why not," I say, despite racking my brain for one. A walk with Glimmer? How awkward is _this _going to be?

"Good," she says, throwing back the sheets, getting her robe, and putting on her slippers all at the same time. She ties her blonde hair back, and walks right up to the end of my bed.

"Are you coming or not?"

Jeez, woman, my reaction time can only be so fast.

The hallway isn't noisy, but the bustling sounds from the rest of the hospital create a background murmur that constantly follows us from the minute we step through the ward doors.

"Um…do you have any kind of preference as to where we go?"

I don't know why that came out so formally, but Glimmer doesn't seem to notice. She looks leisurely from left to right.

"Well, there aren't many places left I haven't been to…oh, wait," she pauses, her attention straight ahead. "I didn't see that yesterday."

The balcony. Of all the locations to choose, this is the best one - I could be alone with my thoughts while she goggles at the Neutron cityscape.

"You mean you haven't been outside yet?"

"No," she replies. "Show me."

She really likes telling people what to do.

I take a few steps forward, when out of the corner of my eye, I spot a gurney headed in our direction. Glimmer and I both stop and stare at the unmistakable sight of red hair that passes by.

"It's her. Fox girl," I say. She isn't entirely unconscious, but she does look drugged up beyond belief.

"Berries…never the berries…what happened to the cheese…?" She raises an arm feebly, but it drops back to her side. What she's muttering about is anyone's guess.

"What happened to _her_?" Glimmer asks the unfamiliar doctor pushing Fox girl (I know it's Vixen, but the label sticks too much for me to let it go just yet).

"Classic case of poisoning," he replies over his shoulder. "Taking her for a blood wash down on Immunology - all the machines on Intensive are in use."

He talks to us as if we're also doctors, and not patients who know very little about medicine. But at least the message isn't hard to grasp.

"Tough break," says Glimmer. "Oh well, sucks for her. Now, the balcony."

"...They have an Immunology Floor?" I say aloud as I'm shepherded towards the balcony door.

I let her go first, closing the door behind me. Sunlight is painted in a sheen over the building tops, and the sky is somewhere between lemon-yellow and peach-orange.

"Wow," breathes Glimmer, stretching her slender arms out on the metal rail. I fold my elbows over it.

"I know. It's pretty amazing."

She doesn't say anything for a good few minutes and, while that's unusual for her, it's not unwelcome behaviour. It's eventually me who breaks the silence.

"Does District One look anything like this?"

A shake of the head.

"Not really. It's shinier, louder, and with a lot more skyscrapers. And the air isn't anywhere near as fresh. And the sky's different."

"I think the sky's different here no matter what District you're from."

I expect this to be met with something sardonic, but to my surprise, Glimmer just gives a tiny smile. She closes her eyes and takes in a long breath of clean Neutron air.

"Glimmer," I say, taking a risk. "Can I ask you what's probably going to sound like a stupid question?"

She turns to me. I can't read her expression, and it's not because of the scars.

"Okay."

"Do you think…I mean, could you ever imagine us making a truce?"

"Who? You and me?"

"No, I mean, you know, the Careers and…everyone else. Do you think it could ever happen?"

She doesn't answer right away.

"I only ask because the tension in there…" I rest my head in my hands on the rail. "It drives me crazy. When I arrived, it was still early days, so the atmosphere was on the ward was nice and relaxed, within reason. But now, my goodness, the divide's so tangible you could probably walk into it and get knocked unconscious. It's partly why I go on so many walks...Am I making any sense?"

Glimmer frowns ever so slightly, but otherwise her expression remains the same.

"Your name is Logan, right?"

"…Yes."

"Logan, you don't have to tell me about tension. It's not like the other Careers and I made up one happy family in the arena. I totally get it - there's all this stuff hanging in the air that nobody wants to talk about, so it just stays there, snowballing."

"Yeah. Yes, that's a good way of putting it."

"I can only speak for myself. And _I_ say that it'll be easier for the other tributes to make peace with the Careers who didn't kill them. Sure, we can call a truce, promise to leave each other alone, but at the end of the day… could you see yourself being civil around Marvel?"

Hm. She's got me there. It takes my brain a while to formulate any kind of reaction, because it's too busy wondering how Glimmer - of all people - suddenly became so profound. And how she knows the word "civil".

I turn away from the balcony, and literally as an answer is about to come out of my mouth, I get distracted by something going on back in the hallway.

"What's wrong?"

"Not sure," I say, pulling the door open and moving swiftly back inside. I hear her follow me.

It's like the entire staff have had shots of adrenaline: doctors in scrubs and coats are rushing past the glass doors of our ward, calling out various code words to each other. I don't dare try to stop one of them to ask what's going on, but that's what a tribute from the ward does with us. It's Dyon from Four, and he's brought his IV stand with him.

"Do you guys know what the heck is happening?"

"No clue, but it looks like a real emergency," I reply from across the stream of doctors. Once the hallway starts clearing, Dyon leans forward conspiratorially.

"Yeah. Hey, you could go and find out. We all want to know the details."

I look at Glimmer for a second.

"Up for some investigating?"

"Sure," she replies quickly. I nod to Dyon, and he disappears back inside the ward. Glimmer and I head for the stairs.

"Why don't we take the elevator? And where are we even going?"

"We'll be seen if we take the elevator," I reply, already on the stairs. "It's only one floor up - the Operating Floor. That's where all the action happens."

"If you say so, Sev - uh, Logan."

I stop when we get to the door, and peer through the glass window to check we're not about to bump into someone like Petri, who'll shoo us away with the utmost severity.

Glimmer practically crashes into me from behind, and then backs off, looking flustered.

"Sorry. Why aren't we going in?"

"Just want to make sure…" I trail off.

"Make sure what?" Glimmer asks, moving in to get her own glimpse through the glass.

We're both paralysed by shock. The sight only lasts for a few seconds, but that's long enough to create something that will haunt me for a long time to come.

The door to the hovercraft landing space opens up with a slam, making way for a long stretcher to come in. Before the surgeons get to it, the body lying on it is displayed enough for us to get a full look.

I say a body, but it barely fits that description. Where there should be a left arm and right leg, there is just empty space. The other leg is mangled beyond recognition.

And his face. There is. No skin. On his face. At all.

Glimmer musters a husky cry, which changes instantly into a high-pitched scream. Her hands go to her face, and I can feel her knees start buckling next to me.

"Oh…OH…" She grabs my right shoulder, my uninjured one, and buries her face in it. Her cold, long hands clutch my arm until I can feel them right down to the bone.

Bone…so much bone…teeth…tendons and joints and…red. That is the only thing on my brain now. _That_ red.

It's a long time before either of us can move, and even longer before we can, with pale faces and shaking hands, root out the single word that explains everything to the other tributes:

Cato.

**Author's Note****: …Gruesome stuff. By the way, I don't know how I failed to notice this sooner, but it appears I brought in Vixen after Thresh, when it should have been the other way around. Apologies for that continuity error. I know how annoying those can be.**


	18. Basket Cases

**Chapter Eighteen**

**Basket Cases**

**Author's Note****: Hey readers! Must first of all mention bluespades **_**again**_** for reviewing a forth time - if there were a reviewing Olympics, this one would take home the gold :^) **

**In other news, sorry for lack of updates in last 2 days, but I was too busy trying not to pass out from the intensity of the men's gymnastics finals last night. Yay Team GB! Our first medal for that in 100 years!**

**Ash**

I wonder what's taking them so long. Dyon stepped outside the ward for a second, and now he's been back for a good ten minutes. We all want to know what the major fuss is over - any other entertainment here is otherwise pretty lacking.

I drum my fingers on my whiteboard to no particular rhythm, keeping my eyes on the doors. The sheer number of doctors who came out of nowhere and went flying up the hallway means that some kind of emergency needs attention, and I would be amazed if it didn't have anything to do with the arrival of another tribute.

But who could it be? Maybe Katniss. I mean, even with her showcase score, she's too slight to outmatch Cato physically.

Cato…the only way he's getting here is if his arrogance causes his focus to slip. But considering there are, what, four of them left, I seriously doubt he'd let that happen.

As for Peeta, that's who my money's currently on for being upstairs on the Operating Floor. His score was only an 8, and judging by his interview, he's charismatic, charming and lovable, but not much else. He had to go sooner or later.

Why do I not say Vixen? I think she might hold out until the end, by hiding and tricking people, waiting it out in the shadows until the gamemakers decide to finish her off with something drastic. Something even worse than a forest fire.

Of course, all this speculation is pointless unless Logan and Glimmer actually get back here within the next _hour_…

Well, would you look at that. They're walking through the doors now. Wait, no, not walking. They're…plodding, like heavy machines. And they're both so white. Jeez, Logan's hands are _trembling_…what the hell did they see?

"So?" says Dyon, sitting far forward in his bed, eager for the scoop. "What's happening? Has someone else come in…? Guys?"

Neither of them pay any attention. Instead, Logan reaches the end of his bed, grasps the rail with both hands, and leans over it like he's trying not to be sick. Glimmer slouches, with uncharacteristic gracelessness, onto her own bed.

"Glimmer? What's up with you?" grills Marvel, taking hold of her shoulders. "What did you see? What's wrong with her?"

He puts that last question to the rest of the room, but we can only look at Logan - how is anyone else supposed to know?

"Logan?" ventures Rue gently, sitting up. "Just breathe, in and out…was what you saw bad?"

Seems like a facile thing to ask, but at least it works a response out of him: a resigned nod.

"Horrible," he says in a hoarse whisper, shaking his head. "Oh man, that was…I can't even say."

"Just take and minute and try," says Rue, as he shifts onto the bed. "It helps to talk about stuff like this."

"Yeah," adds Marvel, his arm around Glimmer as she sits slumped against his shoulder, eyes vacant. "Wouldn't want you to end up on a psych ward or anything."

"Marvel, shut up," says Clove, bored with his penchant for sarcasm, and impatient for an explanation like the rest of us.

Logan struggles to get the word out, but he does it:

"Cato."

A silence sweeps the room with which only an empty ocean or hostile desert could compete. I can feel it within myself as well, down to the hollow chambers of my bones. I breathe just to check I'm alive.

"_Cato_?" repeat half the tributes in the room with wide eyes. No one expected this kind of news.

"Wh- what?" says Clove breathlessly, in the most disbelief I've seen so far. "I-It can't be! You're wrong! Cato's a Career, the _best_ one. H-how could he -"

"We saw him," says Glimmer in monotone. "No way it wasn't."

"Whoa, whoa, how can you be sure?" asks Dan. He looks a lot like he wants there to have been some error of judgement here. But Logan appears just as adamant as Glimmer.

"No. It was definitely him…the body was too big to be Katniss or Peeta…if you could even call it that…" He shakes his head again, but to no avail. Suddenly, he reaches out for a metal dish on his bedside table, and, hiding his face as best he can, wretches into it. I look away for a second, not wanting that urge to be infectious.

"Okay, you obviously needed that," says Jackal, grimacing. She twists a little to press the "Call" button on her panel, and rightly so - don't want that stuff sitting around.

Suddenly, as if throwing up was the physical release he required, Logan starts talking at about a million miles an hour:

"One of the worst things I've ever seen I can't tell you he was all stretched out on this thing and doctors were running all over the place and he hovercraft had just landed it was insane, like a bad dream, I saw so much red so so _so_ much red because all his skin was gone, like _gone_, from his face -" Cue deep gasps of horror from the rest of us. "- and an arm and a leg, whole limbs just not there and the other leg oh my gosh it was awful to look at and I don't even know what's going to happen to him now but he's here, and he is _barely alive_."

Logan flops back into his pillows in utter exhaustion (who can blame him?) and closes his eyes. He must feel at least slightly better for getting that out of his system.

Clove's jaw has been hanging loose for over sixty seconds now. She does close it eventually, and tries to form words of some kind, but then does something entirely unexpected - she faints. Just as well there's a bed to catch her.

Coincidentally, at this exact moment does a fraught Dr. Smithson choose to enter the ward. She's done away with her usual coat in favour of just blue scrubs, topped off with a blue shower cap to keep her hair out of her face.

"My goodness, what's happened?" she asks, taking in the unconscious Clove and the pale Logan and Glimmer.

There's a pause, because I really don't think anyone knows how to explain this concisely.

"Is it true Cato's up there?" Meliss answers Smithson's question with another question. "From District 2?"

"News _does_ travel fast in this place," she replies, to herself, putting a hand to her forehead. She seems to have lost a lot of her normal sunny energy in the last hour. "Yes, he is. Why do you ask?"

"Well…a lot of us aren't taking the news too well," Meliss responds, gesturing to Logan's sick dish and Clove. Smithson takes brisk steps over to observe each of them. I think it's clear that not a lot fazes doctors like her.

"Right, we'll get a nurse in to deal with all of this. There are separate call buttons for doctors and nurses, you realise."

Jackal blushes, and looks down at her hands.

"I simply must get back up there, but can I advise you all to _calm down_? It is beyond irrational to fear a patient who is about to undergo extensive surgery. I haven't seen so much damage in a tribute since…" She shakes her head, unable to remember a specific Game. "The point is, this guy, even _if_ he pulls through, is hardly going to be capable of hurting anyone in this room. Understood? Now, I have surgery to attend to, and it's going to be hard even before it starts - Dr. Petri has been ordered to take time off for exhaustion, so we're one man short. This is going to be very strenuous indeed…"

And off she walks out the doors, stopping briefly to press one of the beds' "Call Nurse" buttons.

In a few minutes, one of them, a short man with greying brown hair, comes along and, without batting an eyelid, clears away the offending dish, and after that, takes Clove pulse and props her up more on her pillows.

We're left in the wake of the revelation that Cato, of all people, is only two floors above our heads. My brain tries to organise the thoughts that are flying around like bats, catching each one in a box.

**So Katniss, Peeta and Vixen are the final three?** I write mechanically. To my further shock, Glimmer shakes her head. Her hand is now around Marvel's arm, which is still on her waist. That's another thought to be packed up for later.

"No. Saw Fox Girl on stretcher before…"

I almost ask why they didn't mention this earlier, but of course more important news has been burning on their minds for the last half hour.

**What killed her?** I choose to ask instead. The shock of her being here isn't quite enough to replace the shock over Cato. I just feel a bit blank right now.

"Don't know," she replies quietly. "But she needed something…" She frowns. "A blood wash?" Glimmer looks over to Logan for confirmation. He gives a nod.

Poison, then, either from a food or her own blood, like Thorn. Huh, that's karma for you, I guess, but I can't summon the energy to feel a bitter pleasure about this.

I'm too busy with my next thought, which has escaped from its little box: Katniss and Peeta are the only tributes left in the Games. If their star-crossed lovers gimmick is for real, then I feel so sorry for them. I mean, killing someone you barely know, out of necessity to survive, is one thing. But to kill someone you feel strongly for, that's something I don't even know.

I can only imagine that the choice between your own life or death stops being so easy and clear-cut. And hey, even if they never were in love, even if it was all a clever ruse for the cameras, I still feel bad for them. Dying isn't fun for anyone, as we now know.

"I wonder which Game the doc was talking about," says Marvel, thinking to himself. "...hey, maybe she meant Annie Cresta's Games."

A collective wince carries itself around the room as we recall _that_ moment. Decapitation. I doubt even the Careers in this ward would be able to do that.

"You're probably right," says Jackal without any sarcasm. "You want to know what even this clinic can't fix, well, I bet that's the thing."

I close my eyes. Must keep packing away my thoughts, especially the most morbid ones. But now the largest box I've been trying to keep shut is bursting open: fear. I can feel it snake out of my brain, go down my spine and frazzle my nerves, cause a cold sweat to start breaking out on my forehead.

Cato may be incapable of doing anything now, but what about later? Smithson neglected to mention what will happen when he's well enough to get up, walk around and start seeking out revenge - surely finding out the tributes he killed are all alive will only spur him into making a double kill. And I would be a strong candidate.

The city that surrounds this clinic - I don't know it at all. And there's no way of me escaping it. If he does decide to come after me, then my real death date is only so far away.

Or maybe it won't even be in the distant future. What if he recovers sooner and better than they're expecting? What if I'm still here, on this ward, and one night he slips in undetected through the doors and…

"Ash?" Dan's voice permeates the fog of fear that's encircling my mind. "Ash, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

I open my mouth to answer him, but then remember I can't. I look at my whiteboard, the tool that's been so useful to me in the last week. It seems pathetic now, just sitting there, all blank.

Much to everyone's confusion and unsettlement, I burst into tears.

**Author's Note: That was bleak…how about lightening the mood by reviewing? ;^D Thank you for reading.**


	19. We Live

**Chapter Nineteen**

**We Live**

**Author's Note****: 2 chapters in one day, oh yes. Thank you again to bluespades, and to RanduhmStoryWriteronFF, a first-time reviewer on this story :^) Remember, every review counts.**

**Dan**

I wake up appreciating the power of sleep. After yesterday's breaking news about the arrival of Cato, my head and heart went haywire, but now, after eight, maybe even ten hours of recharge, I feel a lot clearer in myself.

I see Ash is already up, playing with her breakfast morosely. She was so freaked out yesterday, I wondered whether something had snapped in her mind, whether everything that'd happened in the last few weeks had finally caught up with her. Luckily, however, I calmed her down, with a lot of help from Rue, Logan, Meliss and Jackal. I expected the Careers to make a big thing out of it, but all they did was look somewhere else, like they'd really rather not get involved.

The ward feels a lot calmer than it did before night fell. Everything's more orderly, and most of the doctors are back on regular duty, taking their share of work off the backs of the poor nurses and attendants.

The day pans out like any other in this place - breakfast is decent; it gets cleared away; Dr. East comes and does her morning rounds; we flick through papers and magazines to pass the time. Some people go out onto the balcony just outside the ward, others play cards. It's all pretty relaxed, and that's fine by me.

Having said that, I can't wait for my electro-induction session after lunch. Sounds crazy, I know, but according to the staff, this'll be my last one ever, provided everything goes smoothly.

By lunchtime, I've just finished an article in the city's daily paper, detailing the council's latest initiative to plant more trees along the sidewalks. I find it reassuring to learn things about our new environment, no matter how small, because it gives me a sense that by the time I get out of here, I'll have some idea of how to cope with it.

Anyway, like I say, by the time our lunch trays come around, a thought pops into my head, making my chewing slow considerably.

"Question," I announce to the room, before remembering I should probably swallow before continuing. "Shouldn't one of them have arrived by now?"

"One of who?" asks Logan, holding an avocado sandwich.

"Katniss or Peeta," I say. "I mean, it's been, what, almost twenty-four hours since…uh, since the last kill. Shouldn't something have happened by now?"

"You think?"

"I don't know. But here's how I see it - Katniss came across as all secretive and untalkative, but she also seemed smart."

"Yes, she is smart." Glimmer apparently agrees with me, nodding her head emphatically. In response to the weird looks Marvel and Clove give her, she says, "Well, come on, she climbed up a tree, dropped a nest of tracker-jackers on us, escaped, and then blew up our supplies, from what you've told me."

The two Careers open their mouths as if in protest, but can't seem to argue with her, so they shrug and nod.

"Smart," I continue. "And powerful. With an eleven in her showcase, there's no reason for her to wait around before killing Peeta."

"Ah, but what about their being 'looovers'?" contests Jackal, making quote marks with her fingers. I shrug.

"True, but even so, the gamemakers would have come up with a way to drive them together, give them no choice but to try and kill each other. That's how the Games have always been. Hence my wondering why the loser is taking so long to get here."

Pause. Logan takes a slow, methodical bite out of his sandwich, mulling the puzzle over.

"Unless…" he begins, before trailing off.

"…Unless what?" Jackal asks.

"No, forget it. It's a stupid theory."

"Go on, tell us," says Rue. Ash nods a lot, to get in her two cents' worth.

"Unless…" Logan starts over. "They've found a way to cheat the system."

"What are you talking about? You mean cheat the gamemakers?" I say.

"It's possible."

"And also _insane_," says Clove. "The Capitol invests everything in the Hunger Games. There is no way they'd be fooled by two tributes from District Twelve, of all places."

"Haymitch Abernathy did it in his Games," I say without missing a beat. "Maybe the same kind of thing could happen again, you know, they find something that'll guarantee they'll both stay alive. Or…or one of them fakes being dead, or they both threaten to kill themselves. Something like that."

"I guess," adds Marvel, joining the conversation like it's a chore. "If you think about it, they've already pulled one trick with the media. No reason for them not to do it again."

"Well, look," says Logan. "At the end of the day, we're not going to know for sure if they've done it until enough time passes here that it's clear neither of them are coming in. I agree with Dan, though - by the time it's down to the final two, the gamemakers like to wrap things up quickly and efficiently, which makes Katniss or Peeta's absence suspect already."

Everyone seems satisfied with this conclusion, so that's the end of that discussion. At least until…

**Strange, isn't it?** writes Ash after some internal deliberation. **If they both become Victors, then they're stuck in Panem forever. We, meanwhile, are being treated to free healthcare and a whole new start at life.**

"I never thought of it like that," says Rue, as she reads the board.

"Uh, hello?" says Marvel. "If they become Victors, they'll be rolling in cash and luxury for the rest of their lives, and their families too. What's not to like?"

**How many sincerely happy Victors have you seen in your lifetime?**

He can't seem to answer this question. Ash continues writing.

**You know what happens when you become a Victor - there's money, but too much of it. And you live with nightmares from everything you've experienced in the Games. It's either drugs or alcohol as a means of forgetting the past. Sounds like a pretty bad future to me.**

She stops and grabs a tissue to wipe the board, and afterwards carries on writing.

**It's like the losers are the real Victors and the Victors are the real losers.**

I'm not the only person who reads that sentence several times over, and says nothing in response. It's because I can't think of anything to add; it's sadly accurate.

"Daniel?"

I turn to my right and see Dr. East with two attendants at her side. I guess Smithson must be taking a long nap after last night's feat on the Operating Floor.

"Are you ready for your session?"

"Uh, yeah, great. Ready as I'll ever be." Didn't realise that much time had passed already. Actually, considering how deep that conversation about the Games was, this will be a welcome break.

On my way to the Neurology wing, I get a bout of nerves, despite not really being one to have them. Guess my body knows what's coming: a considerable amount of pain. It's telling my brain to high tail it out of there. But that's not happening. I want to be out of this bed by the end of today even if I have to crawl.

Oh the pain, oh…ahahhhh…no, don't think I'd ever get used to that. My spine feels like it's been taken out and replaced with a rod that only conducts aches and strong twinges. But it'll pass, it'll pass…soon. Please. My knees would buckle, but I'm on a bed already, so at least I don't have to worry about that.

"Feel a difference yet?" asks East, leaning over my head a little.

"Not really…just pain. Lots."

"Well, you should notice something in as little as half an hour. Just hold on and focus on your breathing until then. Or think about something else - I often find that helps patients after a session like this."

Something else…what to think, what to think…I've spent more time in my head during these Games than I have in my entire life. Normally the day's about getting up, getting out, and doing whatever needs to be done. Not a lot of time for reflection.

Wait. There is something else. _Someone_ else. All this time, Thorn has only been a floor above my head, and I still haven't seen her. Ash and Flint claim it's not a nice experience, that she's totally unresponsive, practically lifeless. But I still feel an urge to go and visit her myself.

Yes, that's the first thing I'll do once I'm out of bed. See her. Sit with her a little while, just to remind myself of what she even looks like. I mean, every time I've thought about her in this clinic, I've been able to picture parts of her that locked themselves onto my mind: her thick hair, somewhere between blonde and grey, swishing over her shoulders every time she turned her head; those dark, mysterious eyes, which demanded attention even if the rest of her body shied away from it. Those are the things that, when I see them in my head, I think "yes, that's Thorn."

She'll look different in Intensive Care, though, that's for sure. I need to keep that in mind. Then again, I can't imagine I look too dashing either - I bet my bed hair's got its own address now.

Back into the ward I go. The attendants park me back in my space between Meliss and Marvel. All things considered, that guy isn't being a total pain. As long as, y'know, we ignore each other's existence.

"Still alive, then?" says Jackal, giving me only a flicker of a glance from the pages of her magazine.

"And kicking. Well, okay, I don't know about that yet, but we'll see."

"Good."

I sigh, leaning back into the bed. I find myself waiting exactly thirty minutes, like East said, in stillness, before attempting anything. Feels like a ritual that can only be done at a certain time, and anything before it will only break the spell, before it's even happened.

I sit up, back straight, and plant my hands palm down on the mattress. Easy does it…easy…I hold my breath as I lean forward, moving inch by inch slowly and steadily. My nose is almost at my knees when the familiar pain interrupts, and I have to sit up again. But _come on_, that's even better than I was expecting for a result!

As for my legs and feet…well, it's like I've forgotten they're there altogether. But I have to know if they've improved and I have to know now. Here goes…I push into the mattress and will my right leg to lift…oh yes…and now the left…oh _wow_, this is happening for real! Now both…flex toes…bend knees a little, now a lot…

"Yes," I say to myself, quickly blinking back tears of joy. I can't remember the last time I felt so happy.

"Hey, look, you're doing it! He's doing it!" squeals Rue, kneeling on her bed and pointing. She looks more excited than I do.

I don't get, like, a round of applause or anything, but people smile at me all the same. Ash even draws a huge smiley face on her board, with little lines around it so it's shining like the sun.

"Oh, well, this is just amazing," I say. "I wanna go somewhere. Think they'd lend me a wheelchair, Ash?"

She nods assuredly, pressing her "Call Nurse" button without having to be asked. Within ten minutes, I have a chair. As in, something that _isn't a bed_.

**Can I come too? I was thinking of doing the daily roll with Flint anyway.**

"Sounds great. As long as I can move around in some way, I'm happy."

It takes me a minute to work up the strength to lower myself into the chair. It feels pathetically hard, but it only makes sense, given how my muscles have slowly been wasting away into nothingness all the time I've been immobile. Still, I get there in the end, and before I know it, I'm rolling myself out of the ward after Ash.

_Note to self: the first thing you look for in this city is a gym. _There Ash is, pumping her wheels like it's as natural as walking, while I'm struggling to keep up. My arms just aren't used to doing so much at once. By the time we're in the elevator, I'm breathless. Man, that's embarrassing.

**Don't worry**, writes Ash with a wry smile. **It's your 1****st**** day. I'll go easy on you.**

I give her a little tap on the arm, and she giggles silently. Now that's a weird thing to watch.

"Do you remember which room it is?" I ask as we roll onto Intensive Care. She stops to regain her bearings, but then nods. She points down the hallway, and gestures for me to wait. I do. Within three minutes, she returns, this time with Flint, also in a chair.

Before I can stop myself, I choke out a gasp. For a second that awful, _awful_ memory hits me again, and I have to blink it away. Flint is not dead. She is right there, in front of me, trying to ignore what was possibly the worst reaction to seeing an acquaintance again.

"Hi Flint," I manage. "It's good to see you, y'know, alive."

"Likewise," she says. I concentrate on her face, not her arms. Not her arms…even so, there's that one massive scar in between her eyes. It's healed well, but you can't pretend it's not there.

"I would have visited earlier, but…"

"You don't have to explain. Logan and Ash keep me up to date. And it's fine. You're here now, so let's roll."

**Pun!**

So off we set, one behind the other. I pant my way behind the two of them, trying to convince myself that this'll make my arms stronger, which is a good thing.

We turn a corner into a secretive little hallway, very quiet and empty and clean. This must be where they keep the severe cases. Oh boy.

"Here we are," says Flint, stopping outside Room 37. Yes. Here we are. Wow, I really haven't prepared myself enough for this. I know it's just a matter of going in there, through the door, but somehow this feels like a very big deal. Should I steel myself for the worst? What even _is_ the worst?

"Wanna go in first?" she asks. "Or would you rather one of us went? I say one because, well, there's not a lot of room, so I doubt all three of our chairs would be that comfortable."

"Uh, I'm not sure, to be honest. I guess, um…Ash? You wanna…?"

She shrugs, and moves herself forward. Extending a hand, she twists the doorknob and, with some difficulty, pushes it open while trying to get in at the same time. Flint and I offer an arm for support.

As soon as she crosses the threshold, however, Ash stops dead in her tracks. She's looking to the right, at the bed there. I can't see her face, but her entire body stiffens up, and she backs out of the room steadily.

Flint, as confused as I am, frowns and peers as far as she can into the room. Soon, her own face widens into an expression which tells me there's something in there that wasn't there the last time.

"Do you want to leave?" Flint asks Ash, who hesitates, and then nods adamantly.

"Wait, what's going on? What's in there? Is it Thorn? Has something happened?"

They shake their heads. Ash scrawls something on her board:

_**He's**_** in there. Can't do it. Sorry Dan.**

"Cato?" I ask, before lowering my voice, suddenly terrified that he might be awake, or be woken up by the sound of his name. Room 37 just got scary in a _whole_ new way.

"Yeah, if it's okay with you, I don't really want to go in there either," says Flint sheepishly. "From what Logan told me this morning, it's gruesome. And I don't know how much more of that I'm willing to take."

Damn. That's a good excuse. I still really want to see Thorn, though…

"Would you mind waiting out here, then? While I see her? Please."

"Yeah, alright," she replies, parking herself against the wall. "Not like I have anything else to do."

"Thank you," I say, before nodding to Ash. "See ya later."

I hear her wheels turning quietly along the polished floors, take a deep breath, and push myself through the door.

I'm in the space between the only two beds in the room. Looking at the floor with immense concentration lets me figure out how I'm gonna handle this. I should look at Cato first, just to get it over with and stop being so damn afraid of the unknown. Here goes nothing.

When my head turns to the right, my face kind of freezes up. I don't make a sound, but inside my head a hell of a lot of alarm bells are going off.

Granted, this is post-surgery, and so is nothing like the bloody mess Logan and Glimmer described yesterday. But it's still disturbing:

For starters, the amount of bandages is unbelievable. I'm actually having trouble finding any kind of skin under there - Cato's left leg is all wrapped up and in a sling, and his face is smothered in fabric. Only his eyes are uncovered, and they're closed, _thank goodness_.

Also, and I guess I should have known they'd be able to manufacture them here, he's been given what look like bionic limbs - an arm and a leg, to be precise. They don't look human, not even artificially so. They're just cold, silver steel, the same length and shape as his other limbs.

My brain finally processes all of this long enough for me to look away, back down at the floor, and tell myself that he's asleep, and totally down for the count. Hell, even if he were awake, he'd be high on a cocktail of anaesthetic and morphine.

Which leaves what I actually came here to do: see Thorn. Now or never.

I look to my left. My face stays composed this time, but inside, I can feel something crack.

I wheel in closer to her bedside, until I'm next to her right arm. She looks so fragile, like she's made of glass or something, and if I so much as breathe too hard, she'll shatter into jagged little pieces.

Reminds me, in a way, of how she was in the arena. And the Capitol. And during her Reaping. So fragile. But so beautiful.

Even now, in plain hospital clothes, hooked up to tubes and thinner than I've seen her, even with some locks of hair missing, from where they operated on her skull, I still think she's beautiful. There's a patch of gauze covering that part of her head, and there are dark rings under her eyes, like ink that's bled into a delicate fabric.

So this is her. Almost as I remember her. But obviously things are missing - the spark in her large eyes when she was the only person in the Training Centre to step up and rescue me from Cato. And her smile, which would come out only occasionally. But when it did…wow.

I remember not long after her scuffle with Cato, when I thanked her for it, we were standing at the archery station, and she had a bowstring drawn back. I was helping her with the technique - despite never having used a bow in my life - and when I put my hand under her slender arm, caught the perfume of her hair, felt her quiver when she smiled and laughed…I felt something very new, and very different. And I liked it.

But here we are now, only a couple of weeks later, and everything has been upturned. We both cheated death without even asking for it, and are now stuck in a totally new world, me weak and trying to keep a lid on the bad memories from the Games, and Thorn…lost.

So why am I still here? Why did I want to see her so much in the first place?

...Maybe this is what love feels like.

It sounds ridiculous, I know - how can I fall in love with someone I only met two weeks ago, in which time I spent about two or three days actually being with her, talking to her?

It is insane. It is absolutely insane. But it is absolutely _real_.

My hand moves onto the bed, and I stroke her arm gently. She feels so warm, like any second now she'll just wake up in a daze and be pleased to see me.

I lean forward as far as I possibly can, so my hand can move to her face. It's so gaunt, but again, so warm. I could sit here and stroke her cheek for hours.

Yes. If I can be sure of anything here, it's that this is what love feels like.


	20. Changing Tides

**Chapter Twenty**

**Changing Tides**

**Author's Note****: Not much to say today other than I hope that, should you enjoy this chapter, you leave a review so I can express my gratitude to you in person (and by that I mean via typed words on a screen) :^) Also, Team GB won their first gold(s) today. Yay!**

**Thorn**

I'm standing on a beach. I've never been to a beach before.

So this is what sand feels like, all soft and smooth, crumbling under my bare feet. And that must be the horizon, stretching out, dark blue and vast, into forever. Out there, tall foamy waves collapse in on themselves, a distant threat that doesn't concern me.

I glance down as the water, clear and shimmering, flattens itself onto the gentle slope of the beach, and almost, _almost_, reaches my toes, before losing strength and edging back to start the cycle again.

I close my eyes and take in this new sound of crashing water, which is so much like a whisper from some ghostly being who could be just next to me. Back and forth it goes, so softly, along with the breeze that blows back my hair, carrying with it invisible grains of sea salt. So very soothing.

But where is this beach? I'm not sure. How did I get here? I sweep my mind for a reminder of my last location, my last action, the last person I was with, but find nothing. I feel like I've always been on this beach, for my entire life, doing nothing but what I'm doing now: swaying with the sea.

And yet that can't be right, surely. I was somewhere else before here, but where? Why can I not remember?

"Selective memory?"

That's not my voice. I open my eyes and turn my head.

In the distance, away from the beach, are white cliffs. Against that backdrop is someone I have no problem remembering whatsoever. He walks to my side, also looking out to sea.

"I've got it too," says Cato. "There is one thing that comes to mind, though - the sound of an arrow cutting through the air. But that's all."

I stare up at him as he looks out to the horizon. We are standing next to each other, and I know that I should be deeply afraid, but it's as if a wall has been built up inside me, stopping anything from coming to the surface; I say nothing to him, and I don't move, even when he turns to face me.

"I worked it out too late," he says. His eyes are a very sharp blue, and they strike me as familiar. I've seen them up close before.

"It was only after the Academy, after all the training and the interviews, the showcase and the fighting," he continues. "That it hit me: I'm a product of the Capitol. One of their soldiers. My only function is to kill people who need to be killed, always has been." He emits a hollow laugh. "To think that all that time I thought being a Career was the life I wanted, the life I chose to work for. But no. It was never my choice, was it?"

I don't answer his question.

"And now," he carries on, regardless. "Now that I'm out of the Games, I can't do that anymore. I have no use. I'm use_less_. And I am in so much pain, you can't even imagine. It's not affecting me here, but I know it's there. I can feel it, it's coming, it's getting worse."

I don't pretend to understand where he's going with this. But I can't ignore the look in his eyes, the way he's pleading to me for guidance, without any words at all.

"I'm lost. I am so lost right now."

I have nothing to say to this, so we keep standing there, looking at each other and listening to the ever-present sound of the tides.

"Ironic, isn't it?" says Cato after some time. He shakes his head. "I know I didn't kill you, but I still feel the need to apologise. What's happening to me?"

Another question I can't answer. All I can do is keep my gaze fixed on him. He doesn't seem to mind the one-sided nature of this conversation.

I look at him. He looks at me. That's all we do.

And then, very slowly, he starts brushing a hand, slowly, up and down my right arm in long strokes. I realise for the first time that I'm wearing light, clean white clothes. As is he.

My eyes return to his, and with a neutral expression, Cato moves his hand higher, to my face. He runs his long, strong fingers over my right cheekbone, and holds that side of my face in his hand. All the while he doesn't move an inch closer.

That's when the water touches our feet. At the same time, we look down and see it flow over our skin, up to our ankles. It's much colder than I expected, and it makes my pulse go faster. I can feel it.

Something has changed.

I return my eyes to Cato, and watch as his face becomes another's, very subtly: his cheekbones are slightly higher, his hair is a darker shade of blonde, and his jaw narrows in size. The eyes are more open, and a calmer blue, a blue closer to that of the sea which is still beside us.

Except that it isn't.

In one swift motion, the landscape around me morphs into something altogether different. This is whiter, greyer, and with bright lights. The hand stays holding my face, and I see the changed face travel with me into this new reality.

I feel myself being pulled up and out of something, breaking through surface tension and suddenly sensing the heavier weight of an atmosphere that I do not recognise.

I blink, and gasp, and blink again.

I am on a bed. There is no beach now, because I'm on a bed.

"…Thorn? Thorn, oh, I…you're awake, you're here!"

My eyes move in random directions, trying to pilot themselves into looking the right way, at the source of this voice, this voice that resonates so profoundly with me.

I sit up immediately, and feel a head rush, but my body is driving itself; it takes no notice.

The guy there, to my right, is sitting in a chair, leaning forward and pressing a button frantically. When he feels he's done it enough times, he lets its control panel fall away so as to look at me. It clanks against the side of the bed.

I know him. I know him exactly. How could I not?

"Thorn," he whispers again, a smile of disbelief and hope breaking out on his face. "I…it's so good to…I mean, I didn't…_no one_ expected you to…"

"What's the situation?"

Both of us divert our attention to the woman in a lab coat with blonde hair. I know that I _don't_ know her. She stops in the doorway of this room I'm in, too shocked to say anything for a few seconds. What's wrong? Am I the thing that's so shocking?

"My goodness, she's -"

Before this doctor-person can finish her sentence, however, a greater emergency arises. From directly opposite the bed I'm in comes a loud moan, which can only be expressing a tortuous amount of pain. When it turns into a throaty howl, the blonde doctor disregards me for a moment, and rushes to the person' side, hastily assembling a syringe of something from her coat pockets.

"Oh, hang on hang on, please just bear with me," she mutters with increasing insistence, filling the syringe, and then tapping the side to check for air bubbles. She almost gets knocked over by the heavily bandaged person for whom the medicine is intended, as they begin thrashing around, although restricted by the sling their leg is in, and by their pain in general, it would seem.

"Okay, here we go, it'll only take a second," she says, I think more to herself than to the other person. She manages to hold down their neck and drive the needle into it. There is another moan of pain before the person slumps into immobility.

The doctor sighs in relief, placing the syringe on a tray by the bed, and wiping her head with the back of her hand.

"Sedative," she says to us. "Should last for a few hours, but now that I know he's awake, I want to get him started on ample doses of morphine as soon as possible."

"Dan? What's going on in there?" Another voice, this time from outside. A young woman in a wheelchair enters the room halfway, and upon seeing me comes to an immediate halt. There's a scar on her face. And on her arms.

Like the doctor, this woman stares at me unblinkingly. I wonder why people keep doing that.

"Whoa," she breathes. "You're…She's…Thorn, you're awake."

I look to Dan. His name is welcomingly familiar. He nods, as if this fact needs confirming.

"I know," he says. "I, uh, don't know what happened. She just sat up all of a sudden."

"Wow."

"Well, this is just remarkable," says the doctor, stepping up close to the other side of the bed and getting out a tiny black torch. Without any warning, she takes my face in her thin hand and shines a strong light in each of my eyes. I have to blink away lots of yellow boxes as she moves on to take my pulse.

"I mean, really," she continues. "Patients who end up in a coma after surgery rarely become conscious in such a short space of time. It takes _six months_ on average."

"Go Thorn…" says the woman in the chair. I tilt my head to the side and frown at her. Do I know her…yes! Yes I do. Flint. From District Six. I smile at her and nod, satisfied with myself. She smiles back, albeit with confusion.

"Tell me, Daniel," the doctor says, a note of caution creeping into her voice. "Did you call for me as soon as she woke up?"

"Yeah, yeah I did. That's what I was supposed to do, right…?"

"Oh yes, of course. It's just…" She puts the small torch back in her pocket, folds her arms, and looks me up and down warily. "It strikes me as a little strange that she's been awake for at least five minutes, and yet hasn't said a single word. Has she?"

"…No. Actually, she hasn't," replies Dan slowly. He looks at me, suddenly with newfound concern.

"Thorn?"

I turn back to face the doctor, which seems to please her.

"Okay, that's good. She recognises her own name, so it's unlikely amnesia has set in. Thorn, do you know who these people are?"

She gestures to Flint and Dan, and they look relieved when I nod enthusiastically.

"Good, good. And do you know where you are?"

Oh no. I don't. Not at all. Is this some kind of test I'm failing? After a pause, I shake my head.

"Well, that's alright, we'll explain it all to you later. No worries. Tell me Thorn, can you remember the last thing that happened to you? Before you woke up in here?"

This is going to take some thought. I hold up a hand to signal this. Think, Thorn, think…I sift through the heavy sands of my memory, until I stumble onto something significant.

Yes. I remember. The arena, by myself. No, wait, not by myself. He was there. Cato and I were face to face…or am I getting confused with the beach? Was that even real? Oh, I'm confused. I close my eyes and sigh impatiently, ordering my mind to give me a coherent answer.

We were by the cornucopia, yes, that's right, and Cato had his sword but then he stopped using it when I told him about the…aneurysm.

I open my eyes again, having experienced an epiphany. But how? _How_ am I here? I know what the doctor in District Ten told me all those months ago. The minute that vessel ruptured, that was it for me. And yet I'm here. So many questions…

Despite my own inner bewilderment, I can feel the three worried stares on me, and so I nod confidently. Yes, I do remember. I'm just having trouble believing it right now.

"Okay, great. Can you tell us about it, please?"

Of course I can…The words "I remember" travel up from my voice-box to my lips, but the minute they do so, it's like they dissolve instantaneously. I frown, and try again, opening my mouth a little, but nothing makes its way out.

Huh. I can't quite figure out what's wrong here. Again I try to say something, but no matter how many sentences I form in my head, by the time they get to my mouth, they might as well not have existed at all.

The doctor observes my struggle, almost with grim expectation, and sighs.

"Oh dear."

"What is it?" asks Dan, with panic in his voice. "Why isn't she saying anything?"

"I was afraid something like this might happen," she replies gravely. "After a major brain operation, it's almost inevitable that specific parts of the organ are affected detrimentally in the patient. In Thorn's case, she may have lost her ability to speak."

"_What_?" say Dan and Flint together, aghast.

"Does that mean she's going to be stuck like this forever?" says Flint. "There's no way of reversing it?"

"Well, let's not assume anything for the moment," cautions the doctor, taking up a chart that's slotted onto the end rail of the bed. "We'll have to run some tests, to determine whether the problem is due to brain damage, or if its root is something more psychological and personality-based. If it's the latter, then it will be easier to remedy, in theory."

"Oh…" says Dan, his whole body sagging under the weight of this bad news. I look at him, and wonder how I come across. I can feel so many emotions running back and forth inside me, but, as on the beach, I don't think anything's reaching the surface. It's like they're all fighting for dominance and, as a result, none of them get it. I can only imagine I look very calm.

I don't like seeing Dan worried. I reach out and take up his hand again, closing mine around it. He doesn't appear to know how to react to this, so I just bring his hand up to my face, like before. I rub my cheek across it lightly, and send a small smile his way. Dan smiles back, but it's weakened by sadness at my situation. This must be so overwhelming for him.

"Okay, I think sooner rather than later is the best way forward," announces the doctor. She gestures to the door. "If you'd like to go back to the ward now, that would be very helpful."

For a moment, neither Dan nor Flint move, but when the doctor gives them a firm, unwavering glare, they begrudgingly move out. Dan holds onto my hand for as long as he can, and sits outside the room, looking at me.

"I'll wait for you, Thorn," he calls as the door shuts him out.

Now I feel sad too.


	21. Unmoved

**Chapter Twenty-One**

**Unmoved**

**Author's Note****: Thank you to the ever-awesome bluespades, as well as bbymojo, for their reviews! The former raised an excellent question about what the tributes' families are given if their bodies are alive on another planet. My answer? Sealed, empty coffins. Hope that clears up the matter for any others wandering :^)**

**Logan**

Another day, another piece of breaking news to continue reeling from upon waking up.

Dan returned in his wheelchair a while after Ash did, with an entirely unreadable expression. But he took no time in waiting to tell us about Thorn's sudden recovery, and her inability to speak.

When he said that, I was automatically taken back to the first day of training, in those initial moments after the head trainer had finished addressing us:

"Sorry, you were kinda just…staring into space."

Thorn's voice was clear, but pulled back, with a note of apology at the end of each sentence. Your own voice apologising for your existence, now there's a strange idea.

In any case, to think she currently has no voice whatsoever is a very sad thought indeed. And if that isn't bad enough, she's occupying the same private room as _Cato_, of all people. She must be so lonely, and terrified, and just generally confused.

I would worry a little more about her, but just after breakfast Dr. Petri waltzes onto the ward and grabs our attention. He may have been gone only one day, but it seems to have done him a world of good: he's clean-shaven, with brushed hair and eyes that are much more awake. In other words, like someone with eight hours under his belt.

"Dr. Petri, it's good to see you back," I say.

"Thank you, Tom. It's nice to be back. Listen, I have an announcement that affects all of you here."

Any quiet chatter dies down immediately - we've been so used to living this quiet clinic life, day in day out, that a sign of major development like this will have us listening right away.

"Now, in the last few days the other doctors and myself have been gathering some basic information, based on people's responses here, regarding your Hunger Games."

Responses here? What responses? I don't remember ever being asked anything…

"As a result, starting today, we'll be involving tributes in what we call Rehabilitative Therapy Sessions: group discussions and activities which, we hope, will help to improve the relations between each of you, in order that you might soon go out into society and be able to live fulfilling, emotionally healthy lives."

It's like he's memorised this off a card or something. "Group discussions"? "Emotionally healthy lives"? I'm getting the strong impression that very little good can come of this.

"Well, unless there are any questions you guys have, we'll get down to it right away. Marvel."

"Yes," he says from the bed without expression.

"Would you do the honour of going first?"

Go first for _what_? But Marvel seems to know exactly what he's talking about, because he sighs complainingly, throws back the covers, and heaves himself out of bed. Having no IV to drag around anymore, he only has to grab his white clinic robe and put on his slippers before heading for the doors.

"Alright then," he says, hands in pockets. "Let's get this over with."

"…That's the spirit," says Petri, rolling his eyes at me. "Logan, Rue, Dyon, if you would."

"Wait, what?" I say, not liking at all where this is going.

"We're supposed to follow him?" asks Rue, a quaver of anxiety in her voice.

"Just to another room, somewhere you four can speak in private. It's only a floor below this one."

The three of us look around at one another, exchange frowns, but eventually, bewildered, obey Petri and get out of bed. I can feel the eyes of all the other tributes on me, no doubt as confused as I am.

Petri leads us in the direction Marvel is walking, several strides ahead. As we move out into the hallway, I keep looking at Rue, Dyon and Petri, searching for some explanation as to why we've been selected so specifically, and what for.

And then, halfway down the stairs towards Seventeenth Floor, I figure out what Rue, Dyon and I have in common: we were all killed by Marvel.

…Oh _no_. They're going to sit us down in some tiny room and expect us to "talk it out" with him, aren't they? That is so not what I wanted to do this morning.

"This is the one, right?" asks Marvel, stopping at the second door on our right. "Room 4B?"

"That's right," replies Petri. "Go on in. It's unlocked."

Room 4B, Ward 841, Room 14…the system here never ceases to baffle me.

We're reluctantly shown in - it's nothing special. In fact, it looks like it belongs more in an office building than a clinic; there's a desk, a wall-length window, a stack of wooden chairs in the corner, a rug, and a rather sad looking potted plant.

"Alrighty then," says Petri. "You guys grab some chairs, set yourselves up, and I'll be back in about fifteen minutes. Okay? Okay. Marvel, over to you."

He closes the door without waiting for a response, presumably because he's expecting us to ask him what on earth we're supposed to do in here.

The three of us look at Marvel, who says nothing. All he does is slide a chair off the top of the stack and set it behind the desk. For lack of anything else to do, we copy him, placing our chairs in a semi circle around the desk.

For two very long minutes there follows an awkward silence. I look around the room and out of the window in continuous cycles; Rue sits on her hands and swings her short legs forwards and backwards; Dyon just sits with his hands in his lap, coughing once.

"So…" ventures Dyon. "Why are we here, again?"

Marvel rolls his eyes as if this is a chore he's been putting off for as long as possible.

"Okay look, the setup is that I've been "advised" to give a formal apology to you three because, well, I'm the one who killed you. So here it is."

He takes a breath and says, in an even drier voice than usual:

"You, Four, what was your name, Dyon? Yeah, I'm sorry for stabbing you in the bloodbath. Rue…"

She looks up from the floor with trepidation, evidently not wanting to draw attention to herself. I'm surprised to see Marvel's expression soften ever so slightly, and his tone subtly shift to something…approaching sincerity.

"I'm sorry you got caught in the net. And that my spear hit you. No hard feelings?"

She gives the tiniest shake of her head. I am suddenly furious that he would even think to ask her that. Then he turns to me, and the voice goes fully flat again.

"Logan. Sorry about the, y'know, drowning."

A pause. I stare at him.

"That's it?" I ask, seething. "_That's all you've got to say_? Oh wow, I mean…you Career types are all the same, I should have known. Well you know what? If you want an easy apology, you can forget it. What you did, not just to me, but to Rue and Dyon, was cold-blooded murder, and that's not something you can just shrug off."

Marvel gives an empty chuckle, and sits forward, his arms on the desk.

"Alright, fine, be like that all you want," he retorts. "But you know as well as the rest of us that, if it was the other way round, if it was my life on the line, you would have done exactly the same thing."

"You're wrong."

"No, I am not wrong!" He slams his hand on the table, making Rue and Dyon jump in their chairs. Marvel glares at me from across the desk.

"You don't know anything about being a Career. Not a thing. You think it's _easy_ trying to live up to the expectations of your predecessors? You think it's _easy_ to be second-in-command to people like Cato, who order you to kill someone on the spot so that you don't get done in yourself? Life's rulebook gets thrown out the window when you become one of us, and don't you forget it. It _never_ gets easier."

He doesn't appear to have anything else to say, because he leans back into his chair and takes his arms off the desk. I keep my arms crossed, determined not to show even a flicker of change in my expression.

"Well," says Marvel, getting up from the chair. "The doc'll be back soon enough. What's say we wrap this up with a good old-fashioned handshake?"

Despite the unwilling looks Rue and Dyon throw to me, Marvel goes and offers his hand anyway. Dyon takes it reluctantly, resulting in a rather limp movement.

Rue seems at least a little more open to the idea of peacemaking and diplomacy, even if only as an abstract concept; Marvel's hand practically engulfs her own, but she keeps a steady grip and nods clearly to him.

My turn. I unfold my arms so that they hang by my sides, but when Marvel neutrally extends his hand, I don't move. I don't move because all I see when I look at his hand is water. Water and the fading sunset above it, and rocks, both jagged and smooth. My own breath in bubbled gasps. Those hands. They're what killed me.

"Oh come on," he says. "Or we'll be here until next year's tributes arrive."

My eyes move to his. I can actually feel the lack of warmth in mine.

Mechanically, heavily, my hand moves outwards, and Marvel gets it in a strong grip. We haven't been in such close proximity since he strangled me.

"I have nothing to say to you."

"Good," replies Marvel emotionlessly. Petri knocks on the door, and Rue goes to open it. "Neither do I."


	22. Spectrum

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

**Spectrum**

**Author's Note****: Hi! Sorry about the delay - today I was obliged to drag myself from the keyboard and be sociable, as our neighbours from our entire street came round for tea (so stereotypical it's embarrassing - we even had scones). However, I am here, and looking forward to more reviews from readers like, say, bluespades ;^)**

**Flint**

I hate being the last to hear everything. As long as I stay in Intensive Care, anything that goes on downstairs will continue to get filtered my way, via Logan, mostly, several hours later.

For instance, this afternoon he walks into my room, looking monumentally ticked off, and the first thing he says to me is:

"You're not going to like this."

"This being…?"

"Rehabilitative Therapy Sessions," he groans. "Just saying it depresses me."

"Great. More medical jargon."

"Exactly. But it gets worse - I just had to sit in the same room as Marvel as he produced this dismal apology for killing me. An _apology_. As if that's going to wipe the slate clean, give us amnesia, and make us all hold hands and sing 'The Valley Song'. Ridiculous."

"What?" I say, getting as ruffled as him. "That's crazy. Was it just you who had to do it?"

"No, and that's why you're not going to like this: I've just been told to tell _you_ that your session is in an hour."

"_Mine_? With who?"

He doesn't say anything, but gives me a look that says "wait, you'll figure it out in a second". Sure enough, my face contorts into a huge frown.

"Oh no. Oh _please_. Not her, I mean…WHY?"

At this point I slam a pillow into my face and pull it on each side, to try and release my sudden outrage. I was having a perfectly uneventful day in here, and now Clove is messing it up.

Fifty minutes later, Logan is still hanging out in the room, and I'm tying my clinic robe at the waist, preparing for the unmitigated disaster that is about to follow. On the upside, these last few days have seen me graduate from wheelchair to a single crutch, so I'm a lot less dependent on anything other than my own body.

"It's not a one-on-one thing, is it?" I ask with an already sinking heart. Logan, leaning back in his usual chair, shakes his head.

"Should be you, her, and whoever else she killed in the arena…which means Jackal will be with you," he adds after some thought.

"Well, that's something, I guess."

"You're Room 4C. Right next to 4B."

"I would never have guessed."

He guffaws - one of the many endearing little quirks that make him Logan.

"Can't you sit with me in there so I don't spontaneously combust?"

"I wish I could," he says sincerely. "But it's exclusive. They wouldn't let me in if I tried. Don't stress, Flint." He gets up and hands me my crutch without even being asked. "It'll be over in ten minutes. Fifteen tops. Then we can both forget all about 'Therapy'."

I cast a wary smile his way as I slide my arm through the crutch.

"Thanks, but this can't be the only thing they've got up their sleeve."

He walks me as far as this mysterious Room 4C before patting me on the arm and waving goodbye.

There's an attendant standing right by the door, and he gestures that I should go on in. Guess he's there as a kind-of Peacekeeper.

When I walk into the room, I feel both surprised and confused: surprised because there are only three other tributes here - Mailo, Kiko from Ten, and Jackal - when in my mind I imagined Clove hacking away at a lot more. And I'm confused because of the stunned silence that greets me as soon as I walk in.

I keep forgetting that most people in this clinic haven't actually seen me yet, scars and all. Of course, Jackal looks at me like a _normal _person, having found out already, but Mailo and Kiko make no attempt to close their mouths. Clove, whose head is wrapped in a black bandana, looks repulsed, but also impressed with herself.

"This going to take long?" I ask by way of a greeting. Mailo, noticing the crutch, gets up from his chair and offers it to me. He gets another one before I can decline.

"As little time as humanly possible," responds Clove, sitting opposite the rest of us, with only a circular rug as a mark of separation. "You. Six."

She's looking pointedly in Mailo's direction as opposed to mine.

"I got you in the neck, right?" He instinctively puts a hand to his lightly bandaged throat and nods.

"Yeah, okay, sorry about that." She turns her attention to Kiko, but then briefly back to Mailo. "…Well, why are you still here?"

Throwing her a dirty look, but appearing to be glad to leave, he exits the room. Boy is she being businesslike about this.

"And you…you lost a fight with the Girl on Fire for a backpack, I remember," she says triumphantly. Kiko flushes red. "Well, sorry."

He stares at her blankly.

"Uh, that's it? Like, that's all I get?"

"Yes. If you have an issue with my concision…then I really don't care, to be honest. Off you go."

Kiko opens his mouth as if to retaliate, and I feel hopeful, but then he closes it again, rolling his eyes. He must not think it'd be worth it, and fair enough. Clove hardly seems the type to sustain any kind of straightforward, rational argument with another person.

As he walks out the door, I notice that, unlike in the run-up to the Games, Kiko's no longer limping. Man, these surgeons don't skim over much.

"Ah, Seven," says Clove, resting her eyes on an unamused Jackal. "Sorry about the kidneys. Hope they're healing up well and everything."

That sentence has so much sarcasm dripping off it, you could fill a bucket to the brim.

"They are, thank you," replies Jackal, spitting each consonant of "thank you".

"Good. And be proud - you made excellent live target practice."

Okay, now if _I_ were Jackal, I'd have jumped Clove without a second thought. But she just moves to leave, muttering "whatever" as she goes.

The door clicks shut. Which means there are only two people left in this little room - me and her. Now she has to look me in the eye, and before she so much as forms a syllable, I make a pre-emptive strike:

"Save it. Whatever pathetic excuse of an apology you're about to hand over, just don't bother. I wanted nothing to do with you in the Games, and I don't want anything to do with you now, because you are a psycho with serious emotional problems."

Clove looks chagrined, but only at being prematurely interrupted. She leans in, arms folded across her knees, her dark eyes unperturbed.

"So are you."

This comment is so unexpected that I don't speak. She leaps on the opportunity to continue:

"Listen…Flint," she says, trying out my name for the first time. "I don't know why you're getting so worked up. I mean, I was hallucinating at the time. It was an _accident_, and I am sorry for it."

"Seriously?" I'm not sure what to think because Clove sounds, dare I say it, more genuine this time.

"Oh yeah, if I'd been aware of what I was doing, things would have been very different. I would never have done _that_." She looks me up and down, shaking her head, before adopting a twisted smile.

"No, if I'm sorry for anything today, it's that I knifed you with such lack of efficiency. Judging by the scars, I didn't put any kind of thought into it…what a waste. One stab to the heart would have done the trick in half the time."

I shouldn't be so angry - she's a Career, born and bred; what was I expecting? And yet I am. Who _is_ this girl, this mentally deranged Capitol soldier, to treat my death, which I have to be reminded of every day just by looking at myself, as if it's some kind of _joke_?

When I speak, my voice reaches its highest volume since I got here.

"What is wrong with you? In all seriousness, Clove, I don't think you scare people because you're skilled with knives - anyone can pick that up with training. No, you scare people because you're so…unhinged. You're a _freak_. A freak who's been dead inside since before the Games began. I mean, do you ever feel _anything_, for _anyone_?"

The smug smile vanishes. Her expression returns to neutral, but somewhere on the spectrum, I see a flash of something…pain. She breaks eye contact with me, choosing to look at the lower corner of a wall.

At last, I've struck a nerve. However faint it is, Clove has feeling for something, and it clearly hurts her. Feverishly, my mind tries to read into that millisecond of change. She does feel, but for what…or who? The idea of Clove having any kind of place in her heart for another person almost seems like a logical contradiction, unless of course there's someone just as cold and sadistic and disturbed as…

"Oh. Oh hang on a minute," I say. Clove's eyes dart back to me. "No fricking _way_."

"What?"

"I should have known. You feel something for him. _You_ want Cato. Oh, that's rich."

I have just taken a huge risk. How the hell am I supposed to know if my speculation is actually true? All I do know is that I want to try and hit Clove where it hurts the most.

To my amazement, she doesn't deny it. Instead, she looks flustered, and her eyes shift from side to side in intense thought, trying to come up with a reply.

"What, and that's more of a shock than you and _Logan_?"

My eyes widen, which puts the ball back in Clove's court. She cocks her head to the side.

"No objections? No denials? How interesting. There wouldn't be much point even if you tried, though. Everyone's caught on, considering you're the one he makes a point of visiting every single day without fail. You'd have to be an idiot not to notice."

"…Well," I say, ignoring her statement and choosing my own words carefully. "That's one thing we have in common, then. Feeling."

Clove doesn't deem this worthy of a response. I stand up from the chair slowly, feeling my muscles stretch and twinge, still getting used to mobility. Once up, I take another risk, and this time I'm not even sure why I say it:

"I've seen him. Cato."

This has her attention.

"Oh. You have?"

"Yeah…Do you want to?"

At first I wonder if Clove somehow hasn't heard what I've said. She sits very still, before eventually standing up and narrowing her eyes.

"Excuse me?"

"See him. You want. To do?" I reply shortly.

"Is this some kind of trick?"

"Even if it was, I wouldn't be stupid enough to tell you," I say, turning to the door. "Look, either way I'm going back up to Intensive Care, so if you want to know where he is, that's your decision."

"...Wait," she says just as I pull the door open. "I'm coming."

The attendant asks if it's okay to lock up, and I say yes. The next thing I know, Clove and I are sharing an elevator to Nineteenth Floor.

What am I doing? Seriously, why do I surprise myself with my own behaviour like this? I could be free of anything Career-related by now, and yet here I am, spending more time with Clove, the tribute who mutilated me, _voluntarily_, than any sane person should.

She doesn't ask any questions on the way, nor do I want her to. I hobble straight ahead of her by a few paces, essentially pretending she isn't there.

I stop outside Room 37, as does she. The nurses must be in the middle of switching shifts again, because there's no sign of any staff through the windows.

I give the briefest of glances to Clove before pushing the door open.

The curtain around Thorn's bed is drawn shut, but Cato's is half-open, enough to get a clear view of his fragile state. I stand at the end of the bed as Clove follows me through the door. She halts as soon as she realises that the person underneath all those bandages, with those bionic limbs, is in fact her partner in crime. She goes for a considerable amount of time without so much as blinking.

"Wow," she murmurs, barely audible. "He…" She looks confused with herself, as if her mind doesn't understand the sentence she's forming.

"He looks so…weak. I've never seen him like this, it's…that's not…not natural."

Her hands go to her face, and at first I expect her to sneeze, yawn or cough. But she squeezes her eyes shut and breathes hard.

I don't believe it: _Clove is crying._

It's short-lived, though, because as soon as she remembers I'm still in the room, she wipes her eyes furiously with her hands, practically scratching at her own face.

"No…_no_. I can't be that. Crying is weakness, and I am not weak, damn it, I'm not."

The way she says it, it's like a mantra that's been drilled into her from a young age. Would certainly explain a lot.

Clove doesn't start crying again, but she has trouble willing her eyes to stay dry. In fact, I could go so far as to say that the sight of her pinching her sinuses and staring only at the floor is a little sad.

As I've stated before, sympathy is really not my area of expertise, and I'm terrible at public displays of affection. But apparently that's not going to stop me from shuffling Clove's way and, with a _lot_ of awkwardness, patting her between the shoulder blades.

The way she jumps and stares at me indicates that this is not something she's used to. My hand goes back to my side. Well, you can't say I didn't try.

There's honestly nothing more for me here. Clove wanted to see Cato, and now she has, so my job is done.

However, as my body turns to fully face the door, I hear the sound of curtain rails being pulled back by hand.

I have to do a double take before registering that Thorn is kneeling on the end of her bed, her left shoulder still in a sling, with her good arm reaching out towards me.

I can feel Clove's eyes on both of us, most likely feeling weirded out.

Of course, Thorn doesn't say anything, but neither do I. All I do is watch as her hand grasps mine and holds on tight. Her eyes bore deep into mine, but in a gesture of friendship. I don't really know how to explain it, but there's something very…hopeful in her face, like she's eager to let me know she cares about my wellbeing.

Or maybe that's just me speculating again. In any case, after about a minute, she gently lets my hand fall away again, before sitting back on her heels, observing Clove with an entirely neutral expression, and closing the curtain manually again.

After a pause, I move out of the room, Clove behind me, and she shuts the door. We both look at each other, at the room, and then at each other. We share a rare moment of mutual uncertainty.

"…What just happened?" asks Clove.

"…I don't even know," I reply.


	23. Without Words

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

**Without Words**

**Author's Note****: I think it's pretty obvious by now who I'm giving a regular shout out to for their reviews ;^) You want a mention and a review for your story? You know what to do… In the meantime, happy reading.**

**Thorn**

I'm going to be honest and say that there really isn't much for me to do in this room.

I've been told I'm not allowed out by myself because of the policy that comes with being under "observation". All I can do, in fact, is get out of bed and pad around the room, but even that takes a total of _thirty seconds_, and I have to do it very quietly, out of fear that Cato might wake up at any time.

So, you can imagine how grateful I was for Flint and Clove's entrance because, brief and tense though it was, it meant that at least I could count this day as _slightly_ different from all the others.

I yanked back the curtain with my own hand when I heard them move to leave. There was this need inside of me to do something, anything to make them stay just a little longer. So I took Flint's hand. What else could I have done? I tried to speak with my eyes, tried to send a message that I'm not as crazy as the doctors are most likely making me out to be.

I don't think it worked very well. She had no idea how to react, and eventually I had to let her hand go because nothing useful was going to come of it.

It's frustrating, you know, having the only person who understands you be yourself. Every few hours I have bedside consultations with new doctors, all of whom try to get me to talk in different ways: jaw muscle exercises, forming letters with my mouth, even having a shot at sign language. You name it, I'm doing it. And none of it is working.

I should care more, I know. But for some reason that I can't explain, my muteness, however long it'll last, seems like the least of my worries right now. In a strange and skewed way, it's actually a benefit right now: so much new information has been toppled onto my head, I'm having trouble just trying to stay afloat. Staying within the boundaries of my own mind allows me to feel in control, able to think through one thing at a time so it stops bothering me for a while.

It only makes sense that the rest of my time is spent staring out the window on the other side of the wall, the one that overlooks this foreign cityscape. I feel most comfortable keeping a partition in my curtain that lets me watch all the sleek trams purr by. Maybe I should start a tally, see if I can make a chart of how many pass the clinic every day…okay _seriously_ I need to get out of this room.

The door opens with a hint of a creak. I don't look away from the window - the doctors have already seen to me for the day, and Cato's round is hardly anything interesting. All I tend to hear is the turn of a page on a clipboard, the click of a pen, and the regular beeping of machines.

But not today.

Instead of quiet, I hear the fairly familiar voice of Dr…Petroni? Perry? Anyway, I can recognise him, but he's speaking hesitantly, with cautious lilts on the edge of every sentence:

"Alright then, good…this is very promising, just be sure to tell me if the pain is still too severe."

My face turns from the window to the opaque white of my curtain. This doctor is talking, not at someone, but _with_ them. I don't have to look to know what that means, but my curiosity is too strong. In tiny, slow movements, I crawl with one hand to the end of my bed, taking care not to ruffle the curtain as I do so. With my good hand I pull it back until I can peer through a slit.

Cato's curtain is all the way open, and the doctor (Petri, that's it) is leaning over his face. The ankle is still bandaged, but no longer hanging in a sling. He's working away at unravelling the bandages from Cato's face.

"Okay…I have a mirror here so you can…see…how…it's turned out."

My hand goes to my mouth when Dr. Petri steps back and offers the mirror to Cato. Not only is he awake, he's sitting up, and his _face_…from a distance, you would never in a million years guess that all the skin got ripped off it. I watch in awe as he studies himself in the mirror, lightly putting his one intact hand up to his cheekbone.

"The skin is entirely synthetic," says Dr. Petri, his eyes never leaving Cato. Even for a professional, he must be absolutely terrified of this particular patient. "For twelve hours or so it'll probably feel a bit stiff, but once you adapt to it, in time I expect you'll forget it's there at all…"

"Hm," mumbles Cato, taking a minute to work the skin around his jaw. It sounds like he hasn't used his voice in years, but, unlike me, he has no problem putting words together.

"Not bad…" he manages through slightly gritted teeth. "Considering."

"Uh, yes, indeed," says Dr. Petri, putting his hands in his pockets and then taking them back out again.

"Now, as for the, um, new limbs, they're fully functioning, measured to match the length and diameter of your other ones. That will keep you stabilised. Having said that, of course there's going to be a lot of physiotherapy in the next few days, which will be tough, admittedly, but…ultimately I would say you've endured the worst."

"Really now…" says Cato, looking directly up into Dr. Petri's eyes. His voice is quiet, but as scary as ever.

"Well, you know, I mean only from an objective point of view, medically and, uh, professionally, um…oh, I should also mention," he says, relieved to be able to change the subject. "At the moment, the other Career tributes are participating in group sessions with the tributes they, well, um, killed."

"…And you expect me to get involved in that."

"Only when you're well enough to be out of bed, of course," says Dr. Petri, before employing a consciously authoritative tone of voice. "But, yes, these sessions are mandatory for all patients, otherwise the board will refuse your release from the clinic. It's part of our Tribute Rehabilitation Programme."

There elapses a very long pause. Cato, thankfully, doesn't look too bothered by this prospect.

"I see. Did you say _all_ tributes?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure about that?" he says knowingly. I almost fall off the edge of the bed when his eyes suddenly move to my direction. Dr. Petri looks too, and then makes the inference.

"Oh, I see. Well, uh, she…" he lowers his voice to a whisper, as if I can't already hear what he has to say about me.

"She's an exception to the rule, you might say. After all, she's the only tribute this year to have died from natural causes, so she has no human killer to speak of."

"Sure, sure. Just checking."

"Right…" Dr. Petri backs slowly out of my sight, his clipboard in hand. "Well, I will leave you to get on and rest. If you need anything, please press one of the call buttons on your panel just over there."

"Cool. Thanks," he says expressionlessly.

The door closes. I withdraw from the curtain, retreating back to my pillows, when I get a real shock.

"I know you're there."

I freeze, as if that will convince him to leave me alone. I can't see him through my curtain, and I know he can't move from his bed, but that doesn't make me any less afraid.

"Come on, there's no point in pretending you didn't just play spy. Get over here."

Well, this puts me into a very awkward situation. I could ignore him, and stay hidden behind my curtain for the rest of the week. Or I could just do what he says. I've got to be rational about this, for once. He can't hurt me. He can't do _anything_ in his state. I'm fine. There is no harm. Nothing bad can happen.

I find my legs easing themselves over the side of the bed, still behind the curtain, and my good arm steadying myself on the mattress.

My bare feet touch down on the cold floor, my slightly-too-long clinic pant legs brushing the clean white surface. In one movement my head ducks out from under the fabric, and I stand up, surprisingly steady. My mousy hair hangs from my head, limp and too greasy for my taste. I'm also painfully aware that a patch of my skull, at the back, is completely bald.

He watches me the entire time, taking in every part of me that's changed since…well, since I died in front of him.

"Closer," he says. I take half a pace forward. He rolls his eyes.

"In the _light_, in the _light_. I can't see you properly."

Wincing inwardly, I shuffle forward, right to his bedside. We both stare at each other, more than a little horrorstruck. Up close, I can see the subtle things that indicate the new skin isn't natural - it's very taut, which would explain why his teeth are so clenched. And the skin itself has this eerie shine, which the harsh lights in the room only exacerbate.

I know I can't be easy to look at either: being in both the arena and a coma has made my muscles waste away, so my bones really jut out. I hate it. It only reminds me how weak and sickly I am.

"You aren't the only eavesdropper in here," he says hoarsely. "I heard them trying to get words out of you, but judging by the silence, you're just stubborn as hell about it."

I glance at the floor, wishing I could unload my speechlessness onto him and be free.

"Still, you're here. You survived…" Cato keeps looking at me, and I keep holding the stare, but his eyes get even colder than usual.

"It's insane," he mutters. "Totally insane: I'm a Career, the strongest, fastest, and best, and I was giving hell in that arena. Now, thanks to a pack of Mutts, I'm an amputee in constant, searing pain. But _you_? You were scared of your own shadow, for crying out loud…and all _you _got was a shoulder wound and one burst blood vessel…Insane."

I don't blink even when he breaks his glare and turns his new face away from me.

"What do you say to that, Ten?"

I know that was out of spite.

No, Cato, I don't have anything to say. Paradoxically, I would love to say that out loud, but instead remain composed, turn away, and pace calmly back to bed. Just before I disappear into the privacy behind my curtain, I steal a glance at him. He's doing the same to me.

All I let him see is a shake of the head.


	24. Back On Her Feet

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

**Back On Her Feet**

**Author's Note****: Thank you bluespades and bbymojo once again! Also sorry for not updating yesterday - the gymnastics and synchronised swimming were too alluring in HD :^) R & R please!**

**Ash**

"Okay Ash…that should do it," says Smithson, as she finishes smoothing down the clear medicinal strips on my throat scar.

I tilt my head back down from the ceiling and lightly touch my hand to the skin that I forgot was there. It feels weird not having the heavy bandages there anymore, but also nice. I can breathe more easily.

Things are definitely looking up for me today, as I first realised when, having got out of bed, I could walk to the bathroom without any support. Sure, the twinge in my ankle was still there, but from a distance, I don't think you'd be able to tell it was ever injured. And that makes me feel happier than I've been in a long time.

I've got to admit, I'll miss the wheelchair - it was fun to roll around in, and let me look up at the world from a different angle. But getting to walk again is something I can't wait to take advantage of this afternoon.

"Any plans in particular today?" asks Smithson, moving her stray blonde bangs out of her eyes.

**Take a walk.**

"Excellent," she says, with such a big smile that her eyes are almost eclipsed by it. "Just be sure to go easy on yourself. Only go as far as feels comfortable for you."

I nod, hands in my lap. She moves over to the young girl Perdita, for her daily application of hair-follicle stimulant. I subconsciously start playing with my own hair, saddened by the idea of it ever going from my head.

Clove's been getting the same treatment, which means that she now has a coat of thin black hair on her skull, from what I've seen in the brief moments when she's taken off her bandana. Guess it'll be a while before she wants to leave it uncovered - right now it looks like the fluffy down of a duckling.

When I feel ready, I slide out from under the bedcovers and swing my legs over the side. On go the slippers, and on comes the robe. I like the familiarity of these clinic clothes, plain as they are. It means there's no thinking involved when getting up and starting the day.

Hands in pockets, I amble through the ward. Half the beds in here are empty, now that most of us can walk around freely. Those still in their beds are either having an afternoon nap, like Marvel, or content with a Neutron paper, like Jackal. Everyone else is scattered around the vast clinic: a few days ago, Arc discovered the Catering Floor, on which patients can get food free of charge. Obviously it's now the tributes' favourite place here, like, ever.

Logan is upstairs with Flint, who apparently is due to join the rest of us any day now. That'll be good for her. If I was alone on Intensive Care after all this time, I'd have gone crazy very quickly.

I step through the automatic doors, which close behind me. On impulse, I take one foot out of my slipper and put it on the floor, just to feel it: cold and smooth.

When the slipper's back on, I stand still, unhurriedly thinking about where to go. Logan sometimes talks about how nice it is to stand on the balcony, the one right down there, but the weather through the windows today looks a bit cloudy and chilly, so I think I'll wait for a nicer day to do that.

And then a random thought pops into my head: is the Physio room open?

As soon as I think this, I find my feet padding in the direction of the elevator. It seems like a bizarre place to go to, but now that I'm well enough to move around, I suddenly realise just how much I miss training.

Oh, not in the Capitol, obviously, but at home in Four, on the beach, just as the sun came up every day, doing drills and dives in the sand. It was tough as hell, but I loved the way it made me feel afterwards: strong and light, like every muscle in my body had a specific purpose, and nothing was wasted.

I wave and smile to doctors who pass by, and shuffle out of the way when stretchers move down the hallway. I'm by myself for the elevator ride, and when the doors open on Physiotherapy Floor, I find myself getting a little excited.

Of course, it will come to nothing if the rooms are locked, or if someone else is using them. It's easy to forget that we share this clinic with hundreds and hundreds of other patients, strangers from this city we know nothing about.

It turns out, though, that the room we all used last time has its door slightly ajar. I expect to see someone there, but there's only the equipment, the mirrors, the fluorescent lights, and me.

I close the door and wonder what to do now I'm here.

The mats look safe and appealing, so, once the slippers and robe have been flung to the side, I lie down on my back and start going through the stretches that my trainer, Quex, ensured I would never be able to forget, having repeated them to me so incessantly that at one point I actually thought I might throw water in his face.

_Ohh owww_…yeah, I am so out of shape. My muscles have been neglected, so it's harder for me to muster that core strength I need to do these leg extensions. Flex foot…owch, ankle…point foot…OWCH, ankle again…

I do this for what feels like half an hour, but when I check the clock on the wall, my heart sinks. It's been five minutes.

Still, can't let that get me down. I have a goal to work towards now: get back to the point I was at before. And that can't happen until I take the first step.

I stand up and go to the middle of the floor. I rock up and down on the balls of my feet and swing my arms back and forth.

Come on Ash, you've done this, like, thousands of times. Your brain won't have forgotten how to do a simple handstand. It's etched into you. You could do one in your sleep.

So why do I feel so afraid?

I have yet to experience the thing Mom used to warn me about: Gymnast's Block. But I get the feeling it's happening right now. What if I go to do it, this basic move, and then my body panics and freezes up? What if -

No. _No_. I can't do this. I am not barricading myself behind a wall of fear, otherwise I'll never get back into gymnastics again. I just have to not think about it. Don't think; do.

Okay, here we go: swing up, swing down, hands on floor. Right leg up - _up_ - push on hands, feel the pressure of the floor, absorb it. Other leg up. Stay. STAY.

Ooh, I can feel my forearms straining. Thank goodness they got some movement from pushing the wheelchair, otherwise I might have already toppled over.

Right, success. But can I go one further? Can I…just…bend the elbows a little OW…and tip my feet…over my head…y-e-s…

My head flips up as I come full circle. For a second, I feel my ankle wobble from the impact, and I stumble. That last awful moment in the arena, when I tried to get myself back on my feet, but couldn't, comes back to me. But I am not there. I am here, and I refuse to fall.

I never thought standing up straight could feel so wonderful. I close my eyes and smile to myself. I'm on the way.

"Hey."

I whirl around, expecting to see an irked doctor or attendant in the doorway, but in fact, it's Glimmer. How long has she been watching?

I wave and shuffle from one foot to the other, shaking out the twinges.

"Didn't think you'd still be able to do that," she says, walking into the room and closing the door. Her arms are crossed over her robe.

I shrug, as if to say, "neither did I".

"I followed you down from upstairs," she says, not giving a reason why. She looks like she wants something, but feels awkward about asking. I wait, rubbing the back of my neck, while she bites her lip.

"Um, I was wondering…could I, like, would you teach me how to do…that stuff," she gets out, gesturing to the floor.

Honestly, she could have asked me if I'd like to buy a crab sandwich off her and I'd still be less surprised. Glimmer must either be more impressed by me than she lets on, or she's extremely bored. Or maybe both.

I look from side to side, before realising that there's no real reason for me to say no. I shrug again. I do that a lot these days.

Her eyes light up a little. She looks genuinely pleased at the prospect.

I demonstrate, step by step, the things she has to do to get into a handstand. She tries, but I know she's too scared of going over, because her legs don't even get off the ground together. I shake my head and stand opposite her, miming: you, move, legs, over, me, catch, hold you up.

Glimmer has another go, squeaking as I get a hold of her ankles and keep her upright.

"Ah! I'm doing it! Wow." She sounds like an enthused kid. Actually, come to think of it, she sounds a lot like me at five years old, when I did my first ever handstand.

She's eager to do it again now that the fear isn't so much of an issue. After three or four tries, I can slowly take my hands away so she's doing it all herself. I guess all those years in the illegal Academy of District One at least did something for her upper body strength.

Soon I'm teaching her how to go into a bridge and stand up from it. Then, keen to move onto something new, Glimmer starts cartwheeling across the floor. After the first attempt, I can't hide my slightly scandalised expression from her.

"What?" She asks. "That was good, right?"

I shake my head, bending my knees to show exactly what her problem is. But when I demonstrate the pointing of the toes, that clears up almost straight away.

Next thing I know, the two of us are careening from one corner of the floor to another, almost in synchronicity. I, understandably, am quicker than she is, but I'm kinda impressed by how quickly she's applied my tips to her movements.

We both stand up, hands resting on hips, catching our breath. I touch the throat strips, making sure they're still securely in place.

"That was good."

Glimmer nods, and then stares at me.

"What?"

She steps back and starts half-gasping, half-laughing.

"Oh my…_Ash_, _hello_?!"

"Seriously, wh- "

When I hear the sound of my own voice for the first time in over a week, my hands fly to my face, and my elbows sink into my knees. I'm too shocked by this to be even more shocked by the fact that Glimmer is rubbing a hand up and down my back, leaning down to my level and grinning at me.

"Oh wow, you're speaking again! That's so great!"

She helps me stand back up. I'm not weeping, thank goodness, but I still feel like walking pillar of jelly.

"I…I don't believe it," I say, more quietly, so conscious of every word and so scared of over-exerting my voice and losing it again.

For a minute the two of us just stand in the middle of the floor and smile. Every time I find myself giggling, it freaks me out a little, so I start giggling more, which makes Glimmer laugh, and that cycle goes on until there are tears in our eyes and we have to lean on each other to stand up.

By the time we calm down, she and I do a double take as we come back to reality. Neither of us has forgotten what happened in the bathroom the last time I was on this floor. We were still Career and tribute then. So what are we now? Are we…_friends_?

No, that's ridiculous. We're not there yet. I don't think either of us can deny that our icy rivalry is thawing, but we're not ready to be pals. When we get out of this clinic, who knows, maybe. But it'll take time.

"So…" says Glimmer, wiping her eyes and looking at the clock, back to her haughtier side. "What are you gonna do now?"

I think, and say the first thing that comes to mind:

"I'm hungry."

She chuckles quietly.

"Me too. All that tumbling's taken it out of me."

"Catering Floor?" I venture. "I haven't been there yet."

Glimmer's hands stay on her hips. Something in her scarred face has definitely shifted.

"Neither have I. Sounds good."

And, just like that, we're walking out of the Physio room together. Life really is very strange.


	25. Match Point

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

**Match Point**

**Author's Note: ****Thank you for your usual reviewing promptness (if that even is a word) bluespades :^) Ash isn't quite ready to let go of the narrator role yet… Oh and, as a warning, there is occasional swearing in this chapter, but I doubt you'll find it in any of the others.**

**Ash**

It's eleven in the morning, and I'm by myself in the main part of my new room. Everything feels like it's unfolded rapidly in comparison to the number of slow, restful days we've spent as patients in this clinic.

And yet here I am, almost back to normal healthwise, and out of the white shirt and pants all patients wear. I just got out of the shower, and am wrapped in a fluffy towel, examining the neat plastic packets of clothes left on my bed by the clinic: underwear, vests, socks, simple plimsolls, leggings, three t-shirts in different colours, a hooded sweatshirt, and some cotton pyjamas.

Their generosity continues to amaze me. I mean, if this were a hospital in Four, or in any of the districts, they'd patch you up, plant some painkillers in your palm, and send you on your way the second you could walk.

But then again, no healing centre, even in the Career Districts, was this wealthy and well-equipped, as far as I know. We've all been relocated to Guest Floor (or Forth Floor), and it's entirely dedicated to rooms where patients' families can stay if they need to. Every year the doctors, so we're told, book out twelve rooms for the tributes, a pair in each, give or take a few.

I'm glad I don't have Clove for a roommate, I must say. Instead, it's the girl from Three, Perdita, who's in the bathroom now that I'm done with it. We haven't talked a lot apart from polite pleasantries, but that's fine by me.

The only people who are still under observation are Flint, Dan, Thorn and Cato, but the first two should be out within the day, I'm sure of it. We've all been healing fast.

I comb my damp hair and look out the window: this isn't a very big city, compared to the Capitol. In the distance I can see blue-grey mountains, and some kind of white plain that sparkles in the sunlight. No clue what it is - maybe I'll ask Logan next time I see him.

For now, though, I have a different task to accomplish today. I let the towel drop to the floor and open up three of the packets on my bed. I choose a black t-shirt over white or navy, and press my feet into the white plimsolls with vigorous determination.

Now that my voice is back, I fully intend to use it. Vixen is about to get a sharp piece of my mind.

"Back soon," I say to the bathroom door, exiting the room. The only other person in the hallway is that guy from Eleven, Thresh, leaning against a wall. I reel back slightly, his presence unexpected. The little remaining evidence of any injury is a thick bandage wrapped around his right bicep.

"Hey," he says without any kind of inflection. I wave out of habit, before remembering my voice is actually there.

"Hi. Um…you okay?" I ask, at a total lack of anything else to say. He shrugs.

"Been worse. That Dr. Petri said he'd swing by and drop off some vitamin pills for me," he says by way of explanation for why he's hanging out in the hallway.

"Oh. Cool," I say, putting one hand on my elbow behind me. I then take an opportunity: "By the way, do you know which room Vixen's in?"

"Vixen?"

"You know, the girl with the fox face."

"Oh, her," he says, a rare smile going into his face as he remembers. "Yeah, you're in luck - I saw a redhead go into that room right there, and there's only one of them around."

He points to a door at the end of the hallway on my side. Well, that was easy.

"Great. Thanks," I say, heading towards it.

"What you want to see her for?"

I stop and turn to look over my shoulder.

"Just a score I need to settle."

He raises an eyebrow.

"Really? Well...do what you got to do. Just don't re-start the Games in there."

I frown, but don't respond to the comment. That was vague, but considering his interview consisted of one-word answers to every question, it's quite the improvement.

I get right up to the door, take a deep breath, and rap my knuckles loudly.

I have my serious face on, but that kind of backfires when it's Ember from Nine who answers the door. I scare her so much she actually jumps.

"Oh, sorry! Sorry. I wanted to see Vixen," I say hurriedly, feeling very embarrassed. Off to a great start, I am. The girl puts a hand to her chest, but then recovers, nods, and opens the door wider. She's going to think I'm mentally disturbed or something from now on.

I see red hair by the window, which whirls around to show me the face I haven't seen since the arena, when it was attached to the words, "you're a lot more naïve than I thought".

The game face is back straight away. Vixen herself stays where she is, looks me up and down with hostile eyes, but her resigned expression tells me she was half-expecting this confrontation at some point.

"Oh. It's you," she says, folding her arms. She looks a lot bonier than she was in the arena, and her skin is all washed-out.

"Yes. You and I need to talk," I say with as few words as necessary.

"Anything in particular?"

"You know damn well what 'particular' I mean."

"Um, should I leave...?" asks Ember in a small voice, still standing at the door.

"Oh no, that's okay," says Vixen, finally shifting from her place by the window, but not taking her eyes off me. "We can go into the hall."

The door shuts. She and I say nothing, both trying to be as stoic as the other.

"Do you seriously want to do this?" says Vixen eventually, rolling her eyes. "I thought the Games were all in the past now."

"Yes, I seriously want to do this," I reply immediately. "And the past doesn't just conveniently go away. We are doing this whether you like it or not."

"Fine," she sighs. "But can I just say - "

"No, actually, you can't just say. I'm so not interested in explanations from you, or apologies. All I wanted to tell you is that you are a first-grade bitch, and I hope I can live out the rest of my existence here without ever seeing your face again."

Now, I escalated in volume just then, so a couple of doors open up with tributes' heads peering out. Plus, I haven't forgotten that Thresh is still there behind me, presumably watching everything, but I really couldn't care less.

Vixen exhales brusquely, and tilts her head to the side, but other than that she looks unruffled.

"Is that it?"

I make a show of thinking, and then look her square in the eyes again.

"Oh yeah, there was something else. I hope you died painfully in there, because I sure as hell did."

Ah, a spark of anger shows up in her eyes. Result.

"Well, I did, as a matter of _fact_," she replies, spitting her words. "So I guess you'll go away happy."

"How did it happen?" I ask, my own arms folded. My eyes briefly take in Rue, Jackal, Dyon, Marvel, Clove and Glimmer, who are all looking out from their rooms at this unexpected argument. Vixen glances at the ground.

"I ate Nightlock," she mumbles. Now that was the last answer I expected.

"Nightlock…wait, you got killed by a bunch of _berries_? Oh wow, that's so…pathetic," I say, starting to enjoy this. "Your death was the result of a lapse in judgement. You must be so proud."

"I'll have you know," retorts Vixen. "I ate them knowing _exactly_ what they were."

"…What?" I say, briefly losing my game face. "Why would you do that?"

"Oh come _on_. I was up against Cato, Katniss, Peeta, and _this_ guy." She points right at Thresh, who spreads his hands as if to say "don't get me mixed up in this".

"What the hell was I supposed to do, huh? Get stabbed and strangled? Be wiped out by the Gamemakers? No, I died on my own terms…and I'm not ashamed to admit it."

"Well…it doesn't change what you did," I say, pointing my finger at her, shaking with fury. "But you know what? At least _I_ went down fighting, unlike you. Coward," I add for good measure.

"Oh, you're calling _me_ a coward?" repeats Vixen, her face animated with a snarl. "_Please_. I watched it happen from the sides, you know, once I got away from Thorn. You _crumpled_ out there. They dragged you kicking and screaming, begging for mercy, all teary-eyed. 'Oh no! Oh no, please -' "

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!" I shout. "YOU HAVE NO RIGHT, _NO RIGHT_ TO TALK TO ME LIKE THAT. AFTER YOU _BETRAYED_ MY TR - "

I cut myself off. It feels like something's stuck in my throat, and I put my hand to it. Vixen recoils, looking aghast, and I hear shrieks from Glimmer, Rue and Dyon.

I don't understand why until my hand comes away and I see bright red blood dripping through my fingers. Oh…

My knees buckle as I try to keep the blood in. What have I done, oh what have I done…I can't breathe…the arena comes rushing back. I'm reliving it. I'm reliving it all.

"Oh jeez, she's bleeding _everywhere_."

"Someone do something!"

"Dr. Petri! Dr. Petri, oh thank goodness you're here!"

"What's happened? Get back."

"Here. Take this. She needs pressure on the wound."

"Good, excellent. Right…just as well I arrived when I did. Let's get her up."

I feel arms supporting me, and at the same time a thick piece of cloth is being wrapped around my neck like a scarf. With my feet dragging along the floor, I'm hurried to the elevator, and a thumb presses the button for Accident and Emergency Floor.

You have _got _to be kidding me.

I'm awake for the "operation", which is actually a minor procedure done in one of the smaller rooms, on a chair, with a needle, invisible thread, and a numbing agent, as Petri explains to me.

I have to keep my head up the entire time, so I can't even see who's holding my hand at the side, the other person who helped me up here. They stay silent the entire time.

Now that my mind has calmed down and got itself back into some kind of working order, I replay the sequence of voices from the hallway, trying to work out who said what.

"Oh jeez, she's bleeding _everywhere_." Marvel, I think.

"Someone do something!" Glimmer, definitely. No one else's voice becomes that squeaky in times of crises. Nice to know she cared, I guess.

"Dr. Petri, Dr. Petri, oh thank goodness you're here!" If I'm not mistaken, that was Rue.

Obviously the person who sounded the most professionally urgent was Petri himself, but as for the person who offered the material for my neck, I'm having a hard time putting a name to the voice. That was when I was starting to really freak out.

I hadn't meant for things to get so out of hand. I didn't want to cause a scene…well, okay, I didn't want to cause that _much_ of a scene. I certainly didn't knock on Vixen's door expecting to end up catching my own blood in my hands.

"There. That should do it."

I slowly lower my head and look at Petri. He doesn't seem disapproving of me, but his tone has a doctor-y sternness about it:

"Now, Ash, what happened was that your stitches tore open because they haven't fully healed yet, and unless you want that to happen again, you simply can't be putting strain on your voice like this. So I'd say that, for a good few days, until the stitches dissolve completely, don't sing, laugh too loudly or get into a shouting match."

He says that last part with a knowing glint in his eyes, and I glance at my feet hanging off the chair.

"Sorry," I murmur, testing my voice apprehensively. "I won't…thank you."

"You're welcome, but it is, after all, my job." He delivers a characteristic smile and nods his head to just behind me. "The person you should really thank is Vixen. She's the one who knew to create a makeshift tourniquet out of her own shirt."

The moment he utters her name, my eyes dart to my left, in disbelief until they rest on the genuine article: Vixen sits on a stool with her legs crossed, her expression neutral. She's in a vest and pants.

I have no clue what to do next.

"Well, you two better be on your way," says Petri with perfect timing, as usual. He stands and opens the door for us. "You know how to get back down to your rooms from here. Take care now."

And then it's just us in a hallway. Again. Only this time things are completely different. Neither of us knows where to look. I rub at the small blood stains on my t-shirt.

"Sorry about your shirt," I muster. We both glance at the creased ball of much bloodier cloth in her white hands.

"Whatever. I'll get another one."

Cue another awkward silence.

"Can I ask why?"

Vixen takes a minute to give an answer.

"Would you believe me if I said I felt bad for you?"

"Not right away," I respond flatly, knotting my fists together in front of me. "Still…thank you, I guess."

Her expression doesn't change, but she acknowledges my marginal gratitude with a nod.

"Although," I add, my voice even and considerably calmer than before. "You do realise that I stand by what I said. And that we are _so_ not even."

"I know."

"…Good," I say. Feeling that I've achieved what I set out to do, I walk past Vixen, towards the elevator, without another word. She doesn't follow me.


	26. Peace Offering

**Chapter Twenty-Six**

**Peace Offering**

**Author's Note****: Thank you, bluespades, and also to Pie18, who did lots of favouriting in the last 24 hours :^D Makes my day, it really does.**

**Flint**

"Hey, look who's out of Intensive Care!" says Jackal as I open the door of our now shared guest room.

"Yeah, and about fricking time, too," I say, going to her bed and shaking her hand. "Thought I'd be stuck up there forever…what are these?"

"Oh, they're your new clothes. Nice and simple, none of that Capitol nonsense."

"Excellent," I say, examining the shoes, the shirts, the socks. And here I was thinking we'd be expected to pay for our own stuff.

"So, what's everyone else up to on this…cloudy day?"

"Don't know, I think most of them are on Catering Floor again. Although I heard someone say they wanted to check out the shops downstairs."

"This place has shops? Jeez, why not a botanical garden to go with it?"

Jackal laughs, pulling on her own new shoes and clicking her heels together.

"I doubt it's anything big. Just places the visitors can go when they're bored, I guess."

"Like me," I say, selecting some items from the bed and going into the bathroom to change. We continue our conversation through the door. "But what's the point of going into a shop if we have no money?…unless I've missed something else."

"Hah, no, I don't think they're so generous they're going to throw gift baskets of money our way. But, you know," she says, coming to the other side of the door. "You can just walk around and not buy anything. That's what I did when I was little. My parents would take me to the District Seven shopping street if I behaved myself. More often that not we couldn't actually afford to buy more than a handful of maple sweets, so I'd just look up at everything and imagine what I'd buy if I had all the money in the world."

"That's both adorable and a little bit sad," I say, opening the bathroom door and causing Jackal to stumble backwards as a result.

"Still, you're right. I need to explore this place more, because so far I've been to…a room, a room, a room and a room. Change of scenery would be nice, I gotta say."

"Whatever you feel like," says Jackal, flopping backwards onto her bed. "If you need me, I'll be right here with the dailies."

She gestures to a small stack of printed paper. I tilt my head sideways to read the front page:

**The Neutrino**

**Issue 233**

**Environmental Minister Calls For Amendment in Tree Rights Law**

"Sounds thrilling," I say dryly.

"It's actually really interesting," declares Jackal, picking it up and unfolding it. I expect the paper to unfold out to her elbows, but instead it has a span of her two palms.

"And really downsized."

"Hm? Oh, yeah. Isn't it cool? All part of the Tree Rights Law and the Regulation For Responsible Printing…"

There's a pause as we both take in what she's just said.

"Wow, maybe I am going insane after all," she says, before shrugging and getting her eyes back to the words on the pages. I keep my thoughts to myself and go for the door.

"Ooh, before you leave," pipes up Jackal. "You did miss something pretty big yesterday. I didn't see it myself, 'cause I was taking a nap, but apparently Ash and Fox Tail had this _huge_ argument, and Ash was shouting so much she tore her stitches open!"

"_What_?" I turn from the door. "Seriously? Is she alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, she's fine. But Petri had to re-stitch her right then and there. No more shouting for her."

"Wow. What were they fighting about…ohhhh." I recall Ash writing at one point about how much of a grudge she had against Fox Girl, and, briefly, why.

_Go Ash_.

"Huh. Sorry I missed it," I say, opening the door. "See you later."

"You know where to find me," replies Jackal, already engrossed in the lead story. Tree Rights Law…frankly makes me wonder what a slow news day looks like on this planet.

I walk slowly down the hallway to the elevator, not quite able to face the stairs yet. I survey all the different buttons, from, among others, "Operating Floor" at the top, "Intensive Care Floor", "Physiotherapy Floor", "Neurology Floor", "Radiology Floor" (whatever the hell _that_ is), "Accident and Emergency Floor", "Catering Floor", "Psychiatry Floor" and "Reception Floor", which is way down at the bottom. Guess that's the one I want.

I rub my bare arms, half-wishing I'd put on the sweatshirt as well as this white t-shirt. All this recycled air is giving me the shivers.

The doors open with a "ding", and onto a couple I have never seen before in my life. They're middle-aged, and suited up in tight-fitting sweaters and jeans, plus some very bizarre-looking white shoes, which make their feet seem about ten times bigger than they probably are.

The woman, whose long black hair is streaked with grey, puts a hand to her heart and gasps, before appearing embarrassed. The man, who I presume is her husband, puts his arm around her protectively and steers her into the elevator as I walk out of it.

I turn around and watch them watch me as the doors close. Why are they staring at me…oh. Right.

I'm now afraid of facing the open floor of this reception. Maybe this was a stupid idea. Maybe I should go back up and request a surgical mask, or something, to cover my face. Or a paper bag.

_Oh come on, Flint. _This is ridiculous - how can I be worried about the reaction of a bunch of strangers when I've survived multiple stab wounds? No, the burden lies with them. Let them look. Let them see I'm a survivor.

Of course, when I do turn around, the self-consciousness surges back. This floor is _massive_, with upper balconies, lines of desks with orderly queues of people behind them, a modest fountain in the centre, whose gurgles softly reverberate around the white walls, and a row of little shops.

I suddenly feel very overwhelmed. Having spent the majority of the last two weeks in a quiet room with just one or two other people, it's a shock to feel the movement of hundreds around me. As strangers pass by, some also do a double take at my face and arms, while others are more considerate, catching sight of me before quickly glancing away. One of them even smiles sympathetically.

I don't know whether to feel grateful or majorly insulted.

In any case, I have to move before I draw more unwanted attention to myself. I fix my eyes on a shop just ahead of me, and walk calmly and coolly towards it. I have just as much right to be on this floor as anyone else. There is nothing wrong with me being here. Nothing wrong at all.

It's a slight relief to escape the main floor in this bright, white and clean shop, with shelves and counters behind which I can hide myself.

What have I walked into, anyway? I do a full turn, slowly, and take in the posters of beautiful, smiling from ear-to-ear women, with impossibly smooth skin. I touch my own face in comparison: the scar right in the middle of it means there's not a lot of room for smoothness. I sigh, but refuse to let myself wallow in self-pity. I hate doing that.

So this is what makeup looks like before stylists get their mitts on it. This stuff looks surprisingly bland in comparison to the Capitol, but that's hardly unwelcome to me. If there's one thing I like about the people here, so far, it's that they look relatively _normal_. There's no pink hair, no diamond teeth, no birdcage hats. It's refreshing.

I sweep my eyes over a row of thin tubes slotted into the second shelf. Lipgloss, apparently, in various happy shades like "Cherry Blossom", "Peppy Poppy", "Coral Dreams", and "Carefree Crimson". Imagine getting paid to come up with those names.

I move onto a selection of pots, each the size of my fist, under the label, "MiracleWünder Concealer". I raise an eyebrow, dubious about how much the product lives up to its name. Still, no harm in trying it, seeing as it's encouraged with little "Test Me!" stickers on the lids.

I find a small mirror along the shelf, and pick up different pots, holding them up against my face to see which is closest to my skin colour. Eventually I settle on "Chilled Coffee", and dab my finger into it. It's a mousse that feels light and soft as I gently apply it to the bridge of my nose. Unless I tuned out when it happened, I don't think anyone told me I couldn't use products on my scars, and considering the pots all say "Sensitive Skin Friendly", how bad could it possibly be for me?

…It's not bad. Actually, it's very, very good. I keep blending outwards, before setting the pot down and taking a few steps back from the mirror, not really believing what I'm seeing.

From a short distance, I look like my old self. The concealer is so smooth it's hidden the scar away. I allow myself a smile, and then another, and another.

I put the lid back on the pot, and look on the bottom for a price: § 1400.

Okay, I may not know anything about the currency here, but that just looks depressingly expensive. I replace the pot with a sigh. It doesn't matter, really it doesn't. Not like I had any money on me anyway.

"You alright over there?"

I glance up at the voice from behind the cash register. Well, I say cash register, but it's actually a guy sitting behind a desk with a screen flat in the middle of it.

"Uh, yeah, I was just…" I point my thumb to the concealer. "Sampling stuff, y'know."

"Oh yes, that's one of our most popular products," he says proudly, white teeth glinting in the shop lights. "Think you might buy a pot?"

"I would really like to, but…well, I kind of have no money." I walk closer to the desk, arms folded. "I'll be honest - I don't even know what money here is like, or how to get it. I'm sort of…new to this."

He frowns slightly, not quite understanding. And then he sees the long scars on my arms, and his expression changes.

"Oh, I _see_." He leans forward and lowers his voice. "You're a tribute?"

I nod. That's the first time I've heard a non-doctor refer to the Games. I wonder how well known we are, or how well known we'll become.

He's close enough for me to see his nametag: Tyler Breton. Again, so much more normal than the Capitol.

"Well, can I just say, I think you are all incredibly brave," he says with sincerity. "I mean, seriously, every year new tributes come through the doors of the clinic, and every year I am in awe of how well you cope."

"Um, thank you."

He twirls a little plastic stylus in his hand, slowly, carefully, as if deliberating with himself over something.

"So…how did it happen?" He nods to my arms, and then shakes his head. "No, sorry, forget I asked that. So insensitive of me, I'm sorry."

"No, that's okay, really." Wow, this is the most manner-conscious guy I've ever seen. "I was, uh, stabbed to death. A lot of times. Hence the…concealer."

I gesture to my face. Tyler squints, not sure what he's supposed to be looking at. Then his eyes open wide in surprise.

"Oh my goodness, I would never have even noticed. Gosh…how terrible."

He sits back in his chair, looks to the shelves, and then ducks under the desk, rummaging around for something.

"Tell you what," he says, returning with what looks like a chequebook. He starts scribbling something on one of the pages efficiently. "Take this." He neatly tears the page out of the little book, and plants it in my hand. "As a shop manager in this clinic, I'm also licensed to distribute prescriptions for products that I would highly recommend for patients like you; patients who have scars that need covering up, or special formulas for skin damaged by burns, things like that."

I stare at him. This is too good to be true.

"Wow, so…you're prescribing this concealer to me? So will you send me a monthly bill, or annual, or -"

"Bill? There's no bill, it's a prescription," says Tyler as if it's an obvious fact. "No, no, with this you're entitled to two pots of concealer every three months - trust me, it lasts - as paid for by the city council."

"I…I don't believe this. I can't accept, it's too generous."

I try, embarrassed, to hand back the prescription, but he gives me a look and pushes my hand away gently.

"Not a chance. I can tell this is going to make life that much easier for you. It's very much worth it from this manager's point of view. Oh, but I will take it for a second, just to note down exactly who it is I'm writing a prescription for."

I hand it back to him, trying to ignore the lump in my throat. This is so nice. Like, this is so nice it goes beyond the word.

"Flint Verdasa. V, e, r, d, a, s, a."

"What a fantastic name. I love it," he says, handing the prescription back to me with a flourish. "There you are, Flint. Now go and pick up two pots on your way out."

"Thank you. Thank you so much," I say, keeping the slip of paper close to my chest.

"Have a nice day!"

"You too," I reply, picking up an unopened pot of "Chilled Coffee". My hand reaches out for a second one, but I pause and think. Then, after a moment's self-debating, I take a pot of "Elegant Ivory" instead.

It takes me three different doors to find the right one. On the first, no one seemed to be in. The next one opened up on Mailo's face, and the third on Marvel's.

His expression changes from annoyance to surprise to disbelief, all in the space of five seconds.

"Oh. Sorry," I say. "I don't know who's in which room."

"Uh-huh…" he murmurs, looking me up and down. We've never actually spoken before, but there's a first time for everything, I guess.

"Listen," I say, asking outright. "Do you know where Glimmer is?"

"In her room," he replies.

"Wow. That was fast," I say, enjoying the shifty look on his face. "Anyway...her room would be where?"

"Why do you want to know, anyway?"

"Just answer the question."

"Fine, whatever…it's the one next door."

I nod curtly, and knock on the door just to my left. I notice Marvel doesn't leave, but leans against his doorframe.

"Chill, Mr. Bodyguard. I'm not about to exact revenge on her."

He relaxes slightly, but still doesn't move. I roll my eyes.

The door opens, and I see Glimmer for the very first time. I just manage to keep it together so as not to jump in fright - she looks even worse than I do, and I didn't think that was possible. Her face is a mixture of blue, purple and white, and she regards me blankly.

"Hey Glimmer."

"Um…hi?"

"You can't remember who I am, can you?"

She shakes her head from side to side.

"I'm Flint. From Six."

"_Oh_, you're the one who Clove…" She mimes stabbing, and I can't help but flinch a little.

"Yeah. That would be me. Listen, I don't want to waste my time or yours, so I'll get to the point."

I hold up the pot of concealer in ivory. Glimmer takes it and continues not to understand.

"I was just down in one of the shops, and found this stuff. It's concealer, and it works very, very well. Look."

I take out my own pot of concealer from the pocket of my leggings, unscrew the lid, and blend some into one of the smaller scars on my arm. Sure enough, it becomes obscured by what might as well be new skin. Glimmer gasps, and Marvel moves in for a closer look, intrigued himself.

"Oh wow…"

"Yeah. And there's a guy at the front desk who'll write you a prescription for two free pots every couple of months, if you go down in person. Ask for Tyler. He's a nice guy."

"Wait, wait, wait, slow down," she says. "You mean I can get this for free?"

"Yes."

"And all I have to do is ask?"

"Yes."

There's a silence as she turns the pot around and around in her hands, like she doesn't ever want to let it go. Then she looks at me.

"I don't get it. We've never even talked before. Why are you being so nice to me?"

I open my mouth, but can't think of anything to say. To be honest, I don't think even I know. It was an impulsive decision, because I just thought about how useful the concealer would be for people like me. And the only other tribute in my position I could think of was Glimmer.

I encapsulate this thought process in a shrug.

"Just thought it might help. That's all."

With that, I walk away, back to my own room, take the key off my wrist and unlock the door, and feel that I'm ready to move on with my day.


	27. Eye To Eye

**Chapter Twenty-Seven**

**Eye To Eye**

**Author's Note****: Sorry for my updating tardiness, but there was simply too much to do yesterday. Good thing I've settled myself in a quiet space of the kitchen this evening. Now I may work in peace. Major thanks to bluespades and shadesunrider13 for their support :^)**

**Dan**

"_What_?"

"I said he's well enough to begin sessions with the other tributes," repeats Smithson, mistaking my disbelief for deafness.

"But…_how_?" I ask. "I swear the guy's totally bedridden."

"Well, you're mistaken. After two hours of private Physio we saw a dramatic improvement in his mobility, to the extent that Cato can walk even without the assistance of a crutch. It's not the first time we've seen such progress; Career tributes of his type and calibre tend to achieve it, apparently through sheer force of will."

She says all of this really fast. I let my shoulders droop and shake my head.

"Great. Just great. So when's it due to happen?"

"This afternoon."

I stare at her. Again with the _what_?

"That's…today."

"Yes Daniel, it is," she says, more slowly. Might as well pat me on the head and sit me in the corner with some crayons.

"I'd advise you to make your way down to Seventeenth Floor just before two o'clock. Okay?"

She gives her usual gleaming smile and scurries off somewhere else. I can't help but picture her at night, choosing to hook herself up to some kind of sugar IV drip over sleeping. Would explain a lot.

I sigh into the huge amounts of air now available on the ward. I can't get over how weird it is without the rest of the tributes here. All I see are clean, empty beds that look like no one ever slept in them in the first place.

I'm not alone - of course life would just be that kind and leave Clove as my one neighbour. To say it's awkward would be an understatement.

Don't get me wrong; I did attempt a conversation yesterday, albeit with the lamest opener in the history of everything:

"So, how 'bout that stew today? It was real…meaty, wasn't it?"

She gave me this look like I'd just hit myself over the head with a hammer.

"Yeah…meaty."

And that was the end of that. Thankfully she's now got into the habit of keeping her curtain closed all day long, opening up only to collect meal trays and let the doctors check up on her.

I'm not sure how much Clove heard of my conversation with Smithson, but I did see a rustle of curtain when she walked out the doors. Given that she, of all people, passed out when Logan told us Cato was here, I wonder whether there's something going on between the two of them.

By the time the ward clock reads 13:50, however, my mind moves onto more pressing things. I lower myself into the wheelchair and head out to the hallway, not knowing what to feel - I think I'm somewhere between anxiety and bitterness, wherever that is.

What good is this even gonna do? From the lukewarm shrug Logan gave after coming back from his session with Marvel, the whole experience looks like it's going to be ultimately pointless.

And it was always going to be like that, I could tell. Of course saying sorry isn't going to make everything go to the past and stay there. Of course the Careers aren't actually going to feel remorse or anything about killing us: it's what they felt they had to do, what they _wanted_ to do. And there's no changing the mind of someone who thinks they're right.

That's why, when the elevator doors open onto Seventeenth Floor, I wheel myself out projecting a lets-get-this-over-with attitude.

The other tributes are waiting outside a door nearby, either standing, or sitting on some simple chairs. They look my way as I roll over.

"Hey Dan," they murmur in unison, some with waves. I wave back with a nod, taking in Cato's final inventory: Meliss, Ember, Autolycus, Arc, Tristram and Ash, plus me. Wow…that's a lot of kills.

"So when's he getting here? I wanna get back to my afternoon of re-reading the papers and staring at the walls," I say, parking next to Ash. She, like the others, is out of patient clothes and into Neutron clothes: simple leggings, white laceless shoes, and a sweatshirt. Her hands are buried snugly in the front pocket.

"He's already in there," she replies, looking down at me. The recovery of her voice isn't news anymore, but it'll still take me a while to get over hearing it again.

"Well, if he is, then why are we all out here?"

"We're not," says Ember. "Thresh is in the room now."

"But I thought this was supposed to be, like, group therapy."

"It looks like there are a few too many of us," says Ash acerbically. "They said we're going in there district by district."

"Huh," is all I have to say to that. Makes everything a little bit worse - me and Meliss against Cato, without other people to stick close to.

"Hey, I was thinking," pipes up Auto. "Is that Glimmer having a session? She's a Career, she must have killed someone."

"Just one tribute," responds Ember. "Perdy. I saw one of her arrows shoot straight into..." She gestures to her head.

"Who's…ohhh, right, Perdita," I say, clarifying it for myself. Come to think of it, though, if you compare the kills, then next to Cato, Glimmer's practically a saint. Wait, no, that's wrong. I can't say that one girl's murder is better than all of ours. Or is it…?

I don't get time to finish that train of thought, because Thresh steps out of Room 4C. He rolls his eyes.

"Well?" ventures Ash cautiously.

"Dude, I just wasted ten minutes of my life in there," he says, turning and heading down the hall. I'm not surprised. I mean, you put two huge warrior guys in the same room, one stoic and one half-crazed, you're not exactly gonna get floods of happy tears. I sigh again.

"We going in any specific order here?" I ask.

"Not really," says Ash. "Why? You want to go?"

"If it means getting it over with sooner, then yeah, I do."

"Here," says Meliss, pattering to the back of my chair. "I can push you in."

"Oh, uh, thanks," I say as she steers me to the door. This feels weird, like I've been made eighty years older than I actually am.

"Can we go after you?" asks Arc, pointing to himself and Ember. I wave as I get pushed through the door.

"Sure, sure, that's fine."

The door swings shut, and everything's quiet again. Meliss lets go of my chair hesitantly, probably wearing the same wide-eyed expression as me.

He's standing at the window, looking out over the city. The sky is a deep red, scudded with stark white clouds. It's some sight, but nothing compared to Cato himself: my eyes can't move away from the bionic arm and leg, their surfaces glinting in the hazy sun - what is that? Perspex?

I can see fuses and furiously whirring cogs in the limbs, like something out of one of the high-tech sewing machines back home.

He turns to us when the door shuts itself, and there's the extra shock of remembering that his face is totally synthetic. It's like looking at some kind of freaky mechanical waxwork come to life, and I _don't like it_.

"Ah, the pair from Eight." Even under the artificial skin, he can still smirk. "I wasn't about to forget you two. Lasted a little longer than most of the others, I gotta give you that. But not long enough, clearly."

He shifts his eyes to Meliss and winks.

"How you doing, babe? Sorry I had to stab you and leave you."

_Oh that is creepy on so many levels_. Meliss looks at the ground, biting her lip, before daring to reply:

"Don't be. You're not even the one who did it, really. It was Peeta."

The smirk disappears for a second.

"Well, I did it the first time around. And Loverboy's not here, in case you haven't noticed."

Meliss ignores this, so Cato switches his focus to me.

"Anyway, look at you, Whitebone. The sprinter confined to a wheelchair. Oh, the irony."

"Look, can you just apologise already so I don't have to breathe the same air as you?"

"Oh, that's _harsh_," jeers Cato, before adopting a mock-serious stance. "Fine, fine, you can have it: I am so sorry you ran into my sword and you fell off a cliff. Tough break."

"Unbelievable…" I mutter. Thresh was totally right - this is time off my life I'm not getting back.

"Actually, you know what _is_ unbelievable? The fact that I'm the one with the most damage done, and yet I'm also the one standing."

"You don't even know what that fall did to me," I retort through clenched teeth. "I thought that was it, that I'd never even lift my head again."

"Oh, watch out," says Cato to Meliss. "He's about to get all self-righteous again. Right?"

He moves closer to me, so we're right opposite one another.

"Come on, if you wanna throw words at me, then let's have it." He says this like it's a challenge I've made, to see who's the bigger man here. I hold back all the loud and angry words that I do wanna say, in favour of these:

"No. Words aren't gonna be enough. Not this time."

Before any voice of reason in my head can shout out against it, I start doing it; my hands grip the handles of my chair like two vices, and I tense up every muscle in my body, willing it to move in only one direction: up.

I can sense Meliss stepping away slowly, watching me. My bones feel numb, but there's a pocket of space between them and the chair, and that drives me to keep pushing. My knees lock, my feet touch the floor, out of the footrest. I can feel beads of sweat on my brow and my lungs working hard to control the breath that wants to shoot out in shallow, rapid bursts.

It hurts so much to do this. Oh man, it hurts _like hell_, and I know I shouldn't be doing this, I'm not ready…but I am, because Cato looks less and less full of himself with every inch I gain in rising.

My hands can barely skim the armrests now. I'm standing. I am standing up straight, and tall, and determined, like I did just before the fall.

It can only happen for a few seconds, but staring at my enemy eye to eye makes all the pain, all the crippling boredom and electric shocks, worth it.

And then I can't ignore my buckling knees any longer, so I rapidly descend back into the chair, breathing hard.

My hands, sore and stiff from clutching the handles so tight, can just about move the wheels of the chair around until I'm at the door.

"Let's go," I say to Meliss, who opens the door over my head. We head out, without looking back at Cato, and that's the end of it.

**Author's Note: Remember, the Review button is your friend… :^)**


	28. This Bird Has Flown

**Chapter Twenty-Eight**

**This Bird Has Flown**

**Author's Note****: Once again, I'll say that being British is a fine thing indeed. So lucky that something this amazing has happened in my lifetime :^) All we can say now is "go Rio!" Also, thank you to bluespades, shadesunrider13, Awesome2345 and Ravenclawtribute. You are all awesome readers.**

**Ash**

I'm a lot more edgy than I'm letting on. Dan and Meliss are in there right now, which is enough to make my knees knock.

Maybe if Cato had got Dyon too, I wouldn't feel so bad. At least I wouldn't be so alone. But there's nothing I can do about that. And it really sucks.

I hear a click of the door. Dan wheels out first, with an ambiguous expression and…is that sweat? Do I want to know what just went on in there?

"Dan? You alr- "

But he moves away to the elevator before I can even finish my question. No hanging around for him, then. Meliss walks backwards behind him, unsure of how much she wants to say, if anything. She does a kind of half-shrug before disappearing down the hallway. Helpful.

Arc and Ember exchange glances, and reluctantly move through the door, left half-open. That's five tributes already. Even if I wait here, attempting to appear cool and collected by the wall, I'll have to go and do it very soon. There's only Tristram left besides me.

I know what I might say, but at the same time I really, truly don't, which is worrying because - oh look, it's Dr. East. Yay, a distraction!

"Excuse me, Dr. East, are you in a hurry?"

"Um, no, not especially," she replies, stopping, pushing her glasses up. She looks almost bewildered to be brought out of her focused walk down the middle of the hallway.

"How can I help you?"

Good thing there was something I'd been meaning to ask a doctor anyway.

"Well, you work with Thorn, right? In Intensive Care?"

"That's correct, yes."

"Why do we never see her? I mean, if you don't mind me asking."

"No, that's a perfectly valid question," East says hastily. I wonder whether she's like this outside the clinic too. "The truth is, we don't feel she's ready for permanent integration into society as of yet."

"Oh…it's that bad?" I say, uncomfortably aware that Tristram is listening in.

"Mutism is a tricky thing, especially in Thorn's case, when we have no way of performing any kind of background check to gain insight into traumatic episodes she might have had that would lead to something like this."

East recites this without even pausing for breath.

"What about a whiteboard, like I had?"

"Well, yes, of course we tried that before anything else," says East, frowning at me. "But it seems to be a lost cause - it sits on her bedside table, without anything on it at all, from what I've seen. She quite simply doesn't want to use one.

"My colleagues and I have been trying everything, but to be frank with you, Ashes, we're running out of options: sign language, voice recorders, throat syrup, memory tests, techniques for massaging the voice box…but at the end of every session we do with her, the result is always the same. I've suggested that the problem isn't necessarily physical, but psychosomatic - something in the arena has made her lose all apparent will to communicate."

Wow. That's a lot of things to take in, things that don't necessarily make sense to me. Why would Thorn not even want to _try_? Goodness knows I did.

"I would love to stay and discuss this with you further, but now I am in a hurry," says East. "Goodbye."

"Bye."

That's when I realise I'm alone. Wait, what? Where's Tristram? Did he go into the room without my even noticing? But that means Arc and Ember would have left already…oh great. I tried to put off my turn by talking to East, and that only made time accelerate.

As if reading my thoughts, Tristram opens up the door and shakes his head, probably trying to get rid of the memory of his session before it can even settle.

"You're up," he says, regarding me with some sympathy.

_Oh no_. There are many, many things I'd rather be doing than this. Cuddling sharpels, for example, or walking on sea urchins.

Still, it'll only be five minutes. Five minutes, and then I can legitimately never talk to or think about Cato ever again.

I push the door open and close it behind me. The first thing I notice, even before the bionic limbs, is his look of mild surprise. It manages to show up even through this new synthetic skin that the other tributes have told me about.

"It's you," he says, neither bitterly nor mockingly. Just…surprisedly, like I'm an old friend who's shown up without an invite. "And you're walking."

"Yes." Oh man, of all the times for my throat to suddenly go dry.

"Alright then," says Cato, moving to the middle of the room. He looks, and sounds, tired. Guess twenty minutes of short apologies really takes it out of him.

"I'm sorry I slit your throat. Hope you can forget about it."

For someone normally so talkative, I find myself wordless, and thoughtless, too. His two sentences have made me draw a complete blank, and it must show, because he juts out his head, waiting for something to happen.

"…What, you got nothing you want to say?"

And like that, the words have the opposite effect on me. It's like I've found my voice all over again.

"I do, actually," I say. "I've got a hundred things I want to say. But I don't really know where to start. I do know I want to scream, though. I want to scream at the top of my lungs at you, hit you over and over again until one of us can't take it anymore…but I can't. Last time I got to that level, it only made this - " I point to the scars on my throat. " - even worse. So I won't."

"Look, if you want to go on at me for killing you, just do it, okay? Don't give me an introduction."

"Oh, Cato," I say exasperatedly. "Don't you get it? I _don't care_ that you killed me, I don't. Not anymore. It was the Hunger Games. Of course it was going to happen sooner or later."

This was evidently the last thing he was expecting me to say.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, seriously. That's not what's kept me so furious. No, it was the _way_ you did it. Other tributes, in other Games, have killed purely because they had to, and they did it joylessly. But you…you got so much _pleasure_, such a _kick_, out of my pain, my suffering."

It's only when I pause for breath that I realise how close I've moved to him. But it doesn't faze me.

"And that just serves to confirm that there is something fundamentally wrong with you."

Cato remains stoic as ever, but he sighs again.

"Let me guess, you're going to tell me you hate me and always will."

I take one step back from him before replying. I have to make sure that my answer is real, so I can know for sure. It is.

"I don't hate you, Cato. I feel sorry for you."

I wait for a reaction, but all I see is his lips parting slightly.

"It's true. Even if you didn't mean it in the first place, don't be sorry for me. I'm sorry for you, sorry that your existence only involves killing and competing, because now you're in a world where those two things are totally meaningless. They've got it the wrong way round - we don't need help getting over the arena. It's _you _who needs to face up to the fact that, emotionally and physically…you're barely a person."

My head feels light, and my lungs are expelled. I didn't realise until now just how much I needed to say that to him.

I turn and walk out of the room, wearing a half-smile, because I know, from a last glimpse of his icy blue eyes, that something inside him just broke.

**Author's Note****: Please leave a review if you have time. Thanks.**


	29. The Writing Games

**Chapter Twenty-Nine**

**The Writing Games**

**Author's Note: Thank you to bluespades, shadesunrider13, Awesome2345 and writer with no words - you guys are the reason I've now passed the 30 review mark! :^D**

**Thorn**

Today is a big day for me, to use the words of my former mentor. For the first time since arriving here, I'll be in the same room as all the other tributes. Okay, minus Katniss and Peeta, but still, it's as huge a change in my routine as I could ask for.

I was told only this morning that it was a group-wide session, down a few floors, and that speaking wouldn't be necessary. How considerate.

Just after lunch, I make a point of waiting in bed while Cato slowly gets out of his. This time I leave the curtain open, for the sole purpose of shaking my head when he asks if I'm coming or not.

"You know it's mandatory, right?" he says. I shake my head again, batting my hand at him, then nodding and pointing to the wall clock.

"Oh, so you _are_ going, but not with me."

I nod. He rolls his eyes, no doubt tired of trying to decipher my ambiguous semaphore.

"Whatever. See you down there."

I leave a good five minutes between his closing the door and my getting up. My shoulder is no longer bound by a sling, although it still aches if I move it too much.

I grab a hand mirror from the bedside table and do a rare once over, wishing there was something to light up my drained skin. Hair check - oh good, the follicle formula is doing its job: rather than a bald patch, the hair around my incision scar is just thinner than the rest.

Going out into the hallway is a weird experience initially, having slept, eaten, breathed, and generally existed in the little room for over a week. But as I approach the elevators, there's something undeniably refreshing about the cool air that circulates out here.

Once in the elevator, I press the button for Fifteenth Floor and wait, rocking gently on the balls of my feet. The last time I was in one of these was back in the Capitol, and that's like a lifetime ago. I distinctly remember my sheer levels of anxiety back then, and while I'm not exactly a picture of perfect togetherness now, I can't help but think that getting the aneurysm fixed has rewired my brain in more ways than one.

Ding. The doors open up, and I step out, trying to recall which room I'm supposed to go to. It's clear, though, when I catch a glimpse of people filing through a door. I run to get it before it swings shut, hoping that these are in fact the other tributes and not a bunch of strangers.

I'm in the right place, just in time. This room is white, like all the others, but with a strip of forest green where the walls and ceiling meet. It's also windowless, and filled with thirty identical desks and chairs. Wow...I'm back in school.

It's not until people start sitting down at the desks that they notice I've snuck in behind them: Ash pauses mid-sit, stunned; Kiko half gapes, half smiles at the sight of me getting out and about; if Logan still wore the glasses he did on Reaping Day, he would probably have taken them off in disbelief.

In fact, every pair of eyes lands on me except for Cato's, who obviously isn't surprised. Well…this is very awkward. It definitely doesn't help that I'm one of the only people still in clinic clothes.

Stay cool, Thorn, stay cool. Just go and find a free seat, like that one in the third row. That's good, I'm walking, acting like there's nothing wrong at all. Now I'm sitting. This is also good.

The others sit down too, and some of them have the common sense to look away from me and think about something else. But I can still feel people looking at me, and it makes me wonder just what kind of opinions they've formed while I've been shut away.

"Thorn."

That's my name. Who's saying that? Oh, it's…Dan. He's turned around from his desk in front, one elbow perched on the top of his seat.

"It's good to see you," he says with that beautiful smile. I've missed that from the arena. "Real good."

My mouth opens as my brain says "same to you!", but as always, the words fall away at my lips, and, disappointed, I close it again. I look at my hands on the desk, one resting on top of the other, and then I look back up at him. All I can do is smile, give a small shrug and nod keenly.

"You been alright up there?" he asks. I'm aware that everyone else is listening in to this. "I woulda come up and seen you more often, but, well…"

He gestures downwards, and I notice for the first time that his seat is actually a wheelchair. Oh yeah. He was in one when I woke up. I forgot that.

With a sympathetic frown, I point to him and tilt my head upwards, to signal that I'm asking him the same question.

"Me? Oh, I'm fine, don't worry about that. I'll be up and running any day now, you'll see."

I want this Q and silent A to go on for the rest of the afternoon, but a doctor walks into the room, so I just smile again, as does Dan, before he turns around again. I sigh to myself. That was really, really nice.

"Afternoon, everyone," says a doctor whom I've never seen before. Judging by the blank expressions on the others' faces, neither have they. This doctor is tall, lean in the face, with big, open eyes and light red hair tied back in a ponytail.

"My name is Dr. Celeste Caplin, I am the head psychiatrist of this clinic, and I'll be hosting this session for an hour. Now, the past few weeks will have seen some of you working through the very serious issues which will have arisen as a result of your time in the arena, but today we intend to steer you in a rather different direction."

With a lick of her thumb, she walks down each aisle between the desks, dispensing thin stacks of paper to each of us. She continues talking as she goes around, finishes with the paper, and then makes a second round handing out black pens.

"Obviously, a significant part of the healing process extends beyond the clinic, and into our society. Soon you will all be ready to go out and begin a new life in this city, which, daunting though it may feel, will involve finding your own fixed accommodation and earning a living for yourselves. And we intend to support you wholeheartedly throughout this process."

She sounds like an extremely lifelike tape recorder.

"So, the purpose of today's session is to find out more about yourselves, through personality and skill-based quizzes, which are exactly what I have handed out to you."

Quizzes? But…I haven't studied for anything. Does that mean I'm going to fail?

"All you have to do is read through the questions on the sheets and answer them honestly. And please don't feel like it's a race against everyone else in the room. That's not how these quizzes work. Any questions?"

She points and nods to a hand in one of the back rows. I see that it belongs to Marvel. Now there's someone I never spoke to even in training, let alone in the arena.

"What is the point of this, exactly?" he asks, sounding impatient. What, he has some pressing appointment he needs to get to?

Dr. Caplin doesn't appear to take offence at his bluntness.

"Well, at the end of the process, we hope to match each of you with an individually tailored career profile."

"Career?" repeats Glimmer from beside Marvel, confused but also alert, like it's some sort of activation word for her.

"She means a job, hun," he says, patting her hand.

"Oh, okay," she says, smiling embarrassedly.

"That's right. A job," says Dr. Caplin. "One that we hope you'll find fulfilling. Now, without further ado, feel free to start the quizzes."

I can hear a few sighs from other tributes as the noise of sheet rustling echoes across the room. I guess they still feel they could be doing something better with their time.

This is actually pretty interesting. I've never had to answer a quiz about myself before, and it's really varied: the first section shows sequences of shapes, and empty boxes at the end so you can fill in what you think the next shape will be.

The second section lists three words, and asks you to pick what you think is the odd one out. The third asks you to draw simple sketches of the following: a bird, a cat, a tree, a cloud, the sun, the moon, the sea, a bed, a glass, and a house.

I can do all of these things with relative ease. The doctors haven't figured this out yet, but while words cause all sorts of problems for me, I'm fine with drawing. The whiteboard they gave me early on stays blank every time they visit, but when they're gone, I pick it up and slowly draw whatever I feel like. It's very therapeutic, I find.

When I get to the fourth section, however, I get stuck:

**What is your favourite colour?**

This needs more than a triangle or circle. I have to write actual words, which I'm not even sure I can do. I have half a mind to close the paper and give up, but I press the pen down, on the verge of moving it.

Thing is, the last time I tried to write words was the second day after waking up, when they gave me the whiteboard. The doctors also don't know this, but I attempted to write my name.

It ended up looking something like this: ≠∏∫/¬‡ˇ¥

Yes, I know, my own name gave me a series of meaningless lines all crossing over each other. And that's why I gave up on the whiteboard. But it's been days since then. Surely, _surely_, my brain's worked out how to solve the problem…

We have another forty minutes. There is really no harm in trying.

I spell out the letters in my head three times first, and then, with the utmost concentration, I push on the pen:

r.

I did it. Oh my goodness, I got a word out of my head and into the world! I sit back and take in my achievement, before realising that I've got to do that all over again, about a hundred more times.

...Come on, Thorn - you've done the Hunger Games. You can certainly finish a quiz.

Little by little, I fill in the spaces beneath the questions with my handwriting. It's strange to see it again after so long:

**What is your greatest fear?**

_Illness, fire, heights, needles, muttations. Lots of things._

**Would you rather own a kitten or a puppy? **[That is not the weirdest question]

_A kitten._

**Do you prefer tall trees or small trees? **[This is]

_I don't know._

Finally, after more questions which make me wonder whether the doctors were very drunk when they composed them, I reach the final sheet. The others must do so too, because Dr. Caplin stands up from her desk at the front, where she's been reading a book, and breaks the silence:

"Okay, some of you may have got to the last sheet of the quizzes. I should inform you that the answers to _these_ questions will not actually be seen by us. They are purely for your benefit, to express thoughts and sentiments that might not have otherwise reached the surface. When I collect them in, those pages will go in this recycling bin here, so you won't have to worry about anyone else seeing what you write."

With that, she sits back down. I stare at the sheet. There are only two questions on it, but they each have a fairly large answer box underneath, so we must be expected to write a lot.

**What do you like best about yourself? Least?**

I put the end of my pen to my lips, thinking. I don't really know what to say. It's been a long time since I've had good reason to see myself in a positive light, and there are so many flaws in my personality that I don't even know where to start. After a lot of consideration, though, I finally write down this:

_I am quite proud of my hand-to-hand combat, but mostly I like how lucky I've been to live through the Games. But I don't like who I come across as._

There are only five minutes left for me to get down an answer to the last question:

**If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven't you told them yet?**

Well, if ever there was a question to take me by surprise, that's it. And it's weird, because even though I'm in no danger of dying again (I hope), being unable to communicate fits my situation to a T.

The sound of pens scratching away gets quieter. I can't be the only one having a hard time on this question, then.

I write out my answer faster than all the other ones combined:

_I'd regret a _lot_ of things - not thanking Katniss for being so sympathetic in the Capitol, Flint for putting up with me, Ash for being a good, strong friend in the arena, Logan for being nice to me on the first day of training…I haven't been able to say a single word here, which means I haven't been able to tell Vixen that I was the one who threw that stone at her head, or Cato how bad I feel for him, in spite of everything. And of course, not telling Dan how much I've missed him and his smile. I'll stop now._

Owch, my hand hurts. I shake it out just as Dr. Caplin announces, calmly, that she'll be collecting our papers. Dan takes the opportunity to turn around and give me a thumbs up, accompanied by an inquisitive face. I nod, smiling. Again.

"Good," he says, also smiling. I could stare at those teeth forever.

Then Dr. Caplin comes round again with the green recycling bin. One by one we put in our detached sheets. I think she was really onto something when she said we all had a need to express thoughts and feelings deep inside. I know I did.

"Right, thank you very much for your patience and participation, and I hope you all have a nice day."

She smiles and opens the door for us. The tributes start filing out of the room, relieved the writing is over and they can get back to doing whatever they were doing. I get up too, excited for a chance to spend more time with Dan. When I get to the door, however, Dr. Caplin puts out a hand to stop me.

"Oh, not you, dear. If it's alright with you, Dr. East would like to meet down here for your daily session instead. It's just more convenient for her, because she's only one floor below us."

My shoulders drop noticeably. _Why_ _now_, of all times?

Dr. Caplin doesn't budge from the door, so I'm forced to trudge back to my desk and slump into it. I probably look like a sulky child, but that is hardly the point.

Dan wheels himself out of the room, looking just as disappointed as I feel. With a half-smile, he waves to me.

"I'll see you later, okay?"

I wave back, watching him until he's gone. Dr. Caplin smiles at me, stepping out of the door.

"I have another appointment, but Dr. East should be here in about five minutes, alright?"

I nod without any expression, and then I'm left alone in the classroom. Because that is what it is: a classroom where I'm the only student. How depressing.

I plant my head in my hands, bored already.

And then my eyes wander to the recycling bin. Oh…

Before I even know what I'm doing, I get up, poke my head out of the door and look from side to side. Empty hallway.

I shut the door again, and hurry over to the bin, rectangular and lidless. I see a haphazard pile of folded paper squares staring up at me.

No one was going to read them anyway. And they can still be recycled…afterwards.

I bend down and gather up all the papers as quickly as possible, constantly checking the door. My heart is pounding. Any second Dr. East could walk right in and catch me in the act. But I move efficiently, folding the sheets more so they can fit in the pockets of my robe. Once the bin is empty, I button the pockets closed, just about.

Then I hear footsteps clacking down the hallway outside. Thank goodness the floors aren't carpeted, otherwise I wouldn't have got back into my seat in time.

She opens the door, carrying the standard clipboard and pen. She smiles mechanically. I look nonchalant.

"Hello Thorn, sorry I'm slightly late. How was Dr. Caplin's quiz? Good?"

I nod, freezing when she peers into the empty recycling bin.

"Huh. I thought she said some of the sheets would go in here…did an attendant come and collect it already?"

Nod. _Saved_.

"Oh, okay," she says, pulling up a desk so that it's opposite mine. "Well, let us begin, then…we haven't discussed the whiteboard any further. What do you think? Would you be willing to give it another try?"

I put on my thinking face. _Okay, I'll throw you a bone._

Another nod from me. She looks positively delighted.


	30. Both Sides Now

**Chapter Thirty**

**Both Sides Now**

**Author's Note:**** Thank you Awesome2345, bluespades, shadesunrider13 and writer with no words (again). Awesome, awesome, awesome and awesome :^D It's good I'm writing this chapter, because it's preventing me from **_**freaking out**_** about results day…almost 0_0**

**Anyway…do enjoy, and do review!**

**Thorn**

Waiting is hard, as I discover after finally getting out of the classroom. I want to run off to some corner where no one will find me, so I can read my stolen goods. But that's way too risky - instead, I go back to the room I share with Cato, acting naturally.

We eat our respective dinner boxes in characteristic silence, although I can't stop myself from wolfing down salad leaves rapidly enough for him to take notice.

"Whoa, what's the rush? Afraid they're gonna eat _you_?"

I pause, chewing the leaf currently in my mouth like a cow chewing the cud. A shrug, before I lay my fork down and decide that I'm done.

With more excitement than any sane person should have the capacity for, I slide my tray onto the bedside table and jam my finger down on the curtain button until I'm gradually obscured by white.

"Uh…goodnight, then," I hear Cato say sardonically. Oh, how strange I must seem. And how little I care.

I haven't taken my robe off all day, but now I do, so as to empty the pockets of all the papers. Quietly they tumble over one another into the middle of the bed, like a small avalanche. I cross my legs, plump up my pillows, and, with one last glance to make sure Cato doesn't suspect anything more, I open up the first of many pages.

All I have is the moonlight from the clear window in the room, and it just about lasts me.

I know what I'm doing is wrong, and yet it feels perfectly legitimate: I'm not able to speak to anyone, so they should all speak to me, through the words on these sheets. Good thing we wrote our names in the corners, otherwise I'd take all night trying to figure out whose was whose.

Only a handful of answers stay with me for the rest of the night: one of them is Rue's.

**What do you like best about yourself? Least?**

_The fact that I generally tend to like people more than dislike them. But it's easy to hate being "the kid" all the time._

**If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven't you told them yet?**

_I already regret not telling Katniss how much she was like a big sister to me in the arena. That's pretty much it._

I had no idea she and Katniss had been so close, but then I suppose that's why we never really encountered them while hiding away from the Careers. Makes me respect her even more than I did previously.

Maybe, if I ever get my voice back, I should make an effort to get to know Rue better. Now that she mentions it, I don't know how she's managed to cope so well with the circumstances, both here and in the arena, when she's only about twelve. I keep forgetting that because, and a lot of people would agree on this, she seems wise beyond her years.

Glimmer's next:

_My inner beauty. My outer beauty._ This is what she writes simply in response to what she likes best and least about herself. I recall her face from yesterday, at the back. She looked fairly normal, although thinking about it now, there were slight patches of dark crescents under the normally smooth skin. I guess that only makes sense, if she was attacked by tracker-jackers…shudder.

But it's her answer to the second question that really takes me by surprise:

_I'd regret not thanking some of the girls from other districts, who made me feel better about myself when I was down. I haven't told them because that would be weird._

Well, at least she's frank about it. But who was nice to her? Ash? Flint, maybe? Clove? No, hang on, that's pushing it…this is so frustrating. I mean, I haven't been in the loop here, so how am I supposed to know even half the significance of these statements?

Despite feeling left out, I persist in reading, wondering if I'll come across something that resonates on a deeper level. Who's this…oh, Marvel.

_Not telling Rue (11) how sorry I actually am that she got caught in my net instead of Katniss (12). I didn't want the other Careers to think I'd gone soft._

Wow…firstly, he's the one who killed Rue, and secondly, he's _sorry_ for it? I should be relieved that this Career appears to have some humanity in him after all, but it just makes me feel uncomfortable. Maybe that's because he insisted on clarifying, for himself, that Rue and Katniss are still just District numbers, and nothing more.

Clove's answer to the first question makes me want to sneer derisively and laugh at the same time. What does she like best and least about herself?

_My precision. Being short._

She doesn't mince her words, evidently. To be fair, she is a very small person. But a scary, very small person all the same.

Ash's answers are the first to really break my heart:

_Self-respect. Being too trusting._ Oh, she shouldn't be too hard on herself about that. After all, even though I didn't trust Vixen from the get go, that didn't exactly stop me from following her into her fatal trap for Ash.

_I'd most regret - and always will regret - not saying a real goodbye to my family, one that wouldn't have a time limit. I want to do that but, being here, I can't. _

I lay a hand flat on the page, taking in what she's written. I am so selfish. I really am. Have I once thought about my own family since waking up in this place? Have I taken into serious consideration the fact that I'll never see Mom or Savvy again, ever?

No, not now. I can't afford to break down again, not when I'm finally making progress. There is a place in my heart for my family, and for home, that can never be paved over, but for the time being, I have to look out for my own wellbeing.

I go back to the sheets, learning little insights along the way, such as the fact that Hady Jackal likes her outgoing qualities the best, or that Kiko hates his meekness. I know, I thought he was going to mention his limp too. But he doesn't - he's learned to accept it as part of himself, there to stay. I develop a new respect for him.

And then I reach Flint's sheet. I read this with a stronger adrenaline rush than the others, just because I know so little about her. She's normally so closed off, but not so much here:

_Like my independence. Don't like my short temper._

_I'd regret not telling Logan sooner that I actually kind of like him. But I've never been good at that sort of stuff._

Um, wow? That came right out of the blue for me. Talk about an odd couple…or are they? I picture the two of them in my head, looking into each other's eyes…yeah, that is slightly hard to believe. Unless he feels the same way…

I go through the squares of paper, trying to find his, and silently cursing myself every time I make a small rustling noise. I do find it, though - he has very neat cursive.

_I like that everyone sees me as "Mr. Nice Guy". It's also what I dislike sometimes. It makes people like the Careers think I'm weak and nothing more._

Huh, poor Logan. I never stopped to think how he felt in all of this; he died so soon into the Games, and without even seeing the rest of us. How lonely for him. Having been in a similar situation myself, I can see why he'd come out of the experience feeling like he could only be perceived as "weak".

_I'd regret not telling Flint how I feel about her. Maybe I'm still too confused as to what exactly I'm feeling, or maybe there never seems to be a good time to bring the matter up. Perhaps a combination of both, with the added risk that she might not feel the same way._

Awww…well, this actually cheers me up. How adorable that they both like each other, but neither of them has the courage to say it first. And that gives me so much hope, to think that love can still grow between two people, even after something as horrendous as the Games.

But my smile fades somewhat when I get to the penultimate page: Cato's. Of course he would have to ruin that positivity when it was just beginning to ignite.

Nonetheless, I am way too curious to pass up this offer to see a glimpse of what goes on in his mysterious head:

_Being a champion. Weakness._

Short and to the point, just as in the way he speaks. I wonder how he can still retain the idea that he's this unbeatable "champion" when, clearly, he _was_ beaten? Then again, self-denial is so not out of the question here. And it would only make sense that weakness is be the thing he loathes most within himself: it's the very antithesis of being a champion.

…Listen to me, I sound like East and Caplin! Moving on.

_Would most regret not telling 4, 8 and 10 this: I both hate and respect you. Don't think they'd appreciate it anyway._

Oh. I don't know how I should be reacting to this.

It takes my brain a second to work out the names behind the numbers: Ash. Dan. And me. Cato _respects_ us? Why would he do that? I mean, Ash and Dan are amazing people, both of them strong and determined, there's no question about that. But me? What did I do that would have merited respect from Cato, of all people?

Unless my tirade in the arena had a greater impact on him than he's willing to admit. Now that would be something.

I lay his sheet aside and take a breath, stretching my creaky shoulders and neck. I've been sitting here for a long time, and it's starting to take its toll on me.

Still, there's just one more sheet left to read.

It's Dan's. My heart does a small leap up to the back of my throat, as if it's trying to get a peek at his writing alongside my eyes:

_A clear sense of what's right and what's wrong. Acting and speaking without thinking first._

I smile to myself, recalling the slip-up he made on live TV, in front of the entire country. But I also remember his insistence on going to track down Flint, even when it meant endangering his own life. I remember the way he helped bandage Ash's ankle even when completely traumatised. Yes, he is one moral man.

I bring my tired eyes back down to the sheet, to the last question I'll be reading tonight. I seize up when my name appears:

_Would probably regret not telling Thorn, out loud, how much better I felt whenever she was around during the Games. She's unusual, yeah, but in a weird way, it makes me like her even more. No, not like. Love. But too much has been happening for me to tell her properly._

I let the sheet slide out from my fingertips and flutter onto the duvet covers. My chest rises and falls quietly, and my hand runs over my heart just to check it's still there, still beating.

The curtains part as I move through them, standing on the cold floor. I slip out into the hallway without bothering to put on slippers, although I do check that Cato is sound asleep before making a disappearance act. My hand also swipes the whiteboard and pen from my table.

The hallways are dark, empty and silent at whatever hour this is. I survey the doors that stretch out on both sides of this floor, and my heart would sink were it not for pieces of paper that have been stuck up on each of them.

I suppose they did that because everyone was having trouble finding each other. And I am so grateful for that.

"Daniel Whitebone" is right at the end of the hall, by the window. He must have a room all to himself because of his reduced mobility.

My knuckles tap against the door. I want to be quiet enough to stay discreet, but loud enough for him to hear. Please Dan, please please hear it. Please don't have gone to sleep yet…

The door opens. There he is.

I don't think he was sleeping, because he's still fully dressed from earlier today, his blonde hair's neat, and his eyes are bright. They fill with surprise when they take me in.

"Thorn. Wow, hi," he whispers, hopping forward. Now he's supporting himself on a crutch, but it looks like he still needs some practice with it.

"Wh-what are you doing here? They could catch you," he says, concern etched onto his face. My own expression stays calm, but I can feel flickers of anxiety in my eyes.

It's okay, though, This is a good kind of anxiety.

In answer to his question, I remove my arms from behind my back, and hold up the whiteboard for him to see the words I wrote out carefully on the staircase:

**I saw what you wrote about me today.**

His jaw drops, and I see his free hand steady himself on the door frame.

"Oh, Thorn, jeez, I mean, I…how did you-"

He stops stuttering when I interrupt. I interrupt. My mouth and tongue move of their own accord. The wall is tearing itself down.

"I...love...you...too."

I've heard from other people, like Mom and romantically inclined classmates, about the rare moments when two people are so connected to one another that the rest of the universe just falls away.

Now I know what they meant.

A magnetism pulls us together suddenly, intensely, and our lips crash together without pain. The whiteboard and pen fall from my hands and bounce onto the floor, forgotten.

I can feel him stumble back against the door frame, but his long, strong arms wind gently around my shoulders so he doesn't fall to the ground. I copy him for the same reason.

In that moment, all the harmful, toxic energy that used to circle around my veins turns in on itself, sublimating into something altogether new and brilliant and…electric.


	31. Lover To Lover

**Chapter Thirty-One**

**Lover To Lover**

**Author's Note****: 40 reviews! This couldn't have been achieved without Ravenclawtribute, writer with no words, Shadesunrider13, Awesome2345, and bluespades. You lot are just fantastic, you really are.**

**Oh, in other news, I got into university yesterday. YAY FOR ME. Okay, on with the story…**

**Logan**

"I take it this is your favourite place here."

I turn away, from the metropolitan landscape that pans out beyond the balcony, towards Flint, who's just walked through the door to join me. She smiles. So do I.

"You got that right," I reply, leaning against it on my relaxed elbows. "I like getting out here for some cleansing air. And it stops me from getting cabin fever."

"Even clinic fever."

"Touché."

I cast my eyes over her face, which even up close looks much less defined by the scar. You can only tell it's there when the light creates a shadow around the wound's bend and depth, and even then, I don't think it stops her from looking gorgeous, as usual.

"So," she says, adopting my stance. "Did you get given your brochure yet?"

"Indeed I did," I reply, taking the object in question out of my jacket pocket. I unfold and smooth it out carefully before handing it over to her.

"_Becoming A Tree Surgeon_…should have guessed as much," she says, nodding in approval.

"I know. I suppose it makes my personality quiz redundant, if the result was in front of me all along."

And yet, during my time here, the thought of picking up where I'd left off in terms of aspirations never once crossed my mind. But then, anything to do with trees just makes me think of District Seven and Dad, both in a world that isn't this one. My mind must have thought it impossible to reconcile the concepts of tree surgery and living on Neutron. Familiarity and alienation.

"What about you, Flint?" I ask, re-folding the brochure. She angles her body towards me, wearing her normal deadpan expression.

"You're not going to believe what I got."

"Well, try me and we'll see."

…That sounded much less weird in my head. She doesn't seem to notice, though, taking out her own brochure, folded halfway along the spine. She shows me the cover, and I feel one of my eyebrows being yanked up by some invisible force.

"_Becoming A Funeral Director_? Are they serious?"

I thought Flint would be assigned a career that was something along the lines of "no-nonsense life coach", "hard-hitting journalist" or "military officer" - something not so, well, _depressing_.

"But you've seen - and experienced - more death than anyone should have to in their lifetime. I'm not following their logic here."

I expect Flint to agree with me vigorously, and for us to then share a long rant. But to my surprise, she just shrugs.

"I don't know. They sort of…have a point, don't you think?"

Even if there existed some kind of "Manual For Dealing With Awkward Questions", I doubt it would have guidance for this one. Luckily, she just carries on talking:

"Come on, Logan, I'm not exactly a happy, smiley, sunshine-and-puppies-and-rainbows kind of girl. I'm a serious person, and that's fine, I don't care. I guess it came across in my answers. And a person who organises funerals needs to be the one with their head screwed on while families are weeping and being hysterical around them."

"…That's a good point," I say eventually. "But is it something you'd _like_ to do? Because that's the important thing. It's your new future, and you get to decide."

Flint appears to take in this information, looking up to the sky, then back down at her brochure. She lets the pages fall after each other, before stopping on one and making an impressed face.

"The pay is good. Like, better than I expected."

"Okay…but that's not the deciding factor, is it?"

"No, you're right," she says with a hint of reluctance. All the same, her hands close the brochure, and she looks at me with renewed certainty.

"But I do want it. As a career. I mean, if I'm suited for it, if the money's good, and if I have the instructions all laid out in front of me, then how bad can it be?"

I nod with a half-smile. She's so rational about everything. Sometimes it's a shortcoming, but here it's working to her advantage.

"Okay, if that's what you want, then I guess we're both set."

"Yeah."

We both look out from the balcony again, but soon enough I face Flint again.

"You look really good. I hope you know that."

Her head turns to me sharply - clearly that took her by surprise. But, for once, a remark I've made on impulse has the desired effect: she smiles at me and…is that a hint of blush?

"Thanks, Logan…you're the first person to say that to me."

A new, strange kind of silence settles over the two of us, and neither she nor I seem to know what to say next.

However, a distraction appears at that moment, on the balcony a little way over to the right from the one we're occupying.

Without realising we're here, apparently, Glimmer has walked out to get some air of her own. Her blonde hair, down for the first time I've seen, is whisked back in the morning breeze, which she smiles at. Her face, neck and bare arms are like Flint's in terms of their improvement in appearance, the scars from the stings painted over with the concealer Flint told me about earlier.

Marvel joins her, and as much as this alone throws me, I'm even more stunned by the fact that he runs a hand through her hair, affectionately keeping it down over her ears. Glimmer laughs quietly, her own hands going to cover his.

Flint frowns, wondering what I'm staring at all of a sudden, so she also turns around. I can't read her expression, but I'd imagine it's impassive with a touch of surprise.

In silence we watch this little tableau play out: Marvels' arms link around her waist, and she reaches up to stroke the back of his neck. They lean in for a kiss, something so warm and loving that I'm having a hard time believing that it's happening between two Careers, one of whom strangled me with his bare hands.

Flint turns away from the sight of them pretty quickly, making a face. I'm not sure whether she's turned off by Glimmer and Marvel kissing, or by kissing in general.

_My goodness I hope it's the former._ She clears her throat.

"Okay, I kinda didn't need to see that…"

"Yeah, definitely not," I say, looking back at the city.

"Makes you wonder if he's only being like this with her now that she looks more or less pretty again," says Flint in a low voice.

"I wish I could back you up on that hypothesis," I say. "But after we saw Cato, before you gave her the concealer, Glimmer was as shaken as I was. I'm afraid to say that he didn't hesitate to comfort her, so it must be something…deeper than that."

"Huh." Flint steals another look at the pair in question. Now they're facing each other, so close that their foreheads are touching. Glimmer can't seem to stop smiling. Nor can Marvel, for that matter. I don't know how to feel about this.

"Logan, can I ask you something?" She says, turning back to me, hands in her sweatshirt pocket.

"Sure."

"Do you think you'll ever forgive him?"

"…What?" I say, incredulous, but not necessarily angry. I just didn't expect her to ask _that_, of all things.

"Take it easy, I don't mean right this second. I don't even mean soon, or in a few years' time. I literally mean…ever."

"Well, uh…" I fumble, putting my hands in my pockets, and then immediately taking them out and folding my arms. "I don't know, exactly. And no offence, but since when did you care about forgiving people, especially Careers?"

She shrugs again, a playful smile on her lips.

"I know, I know, very unlike me. I was just curious, that's all."

"Okay. Well, you see, at this point in time…" I look over their way again, focusing on Marvel. "…I feel nothing, I guess. No anger, no urgent need for revenge, not even bitterness. I just…don't feel anything. It'll probably stay that way."

"Fair enough, that's no bad thing," responds Flint, apparently satisfied with my explanation. "And I know what you mean. Thinking about Glimmer…I gave her the concealer because I had my own pot anyway, and she needed it: plain and simple, no garnish. I still think she's a total airhead. But…she's civil, and that's enough for me to get on with life and not be concerned about her in the slightest."

"You're right. That makes sense."

"Thanks. I've had plenty of time to think about it."

My hand stays clasped around the cool balcony rail. I flex my fingers, drumming them up and down on it, deliberating with myself as to whether I should ask this next question:

"Tell me, Flint, have you thought about home, at all?"

She doesn't answer straight away, but traces a pattern up and down the rail with her finger.

"A couple of times, but not as much as I should have, y'know."

"Oh, absolutely," I say quickly. "No, I'm glad you said that, because it's only with the arrival of this brochure that it's hit me: I am never, _never_ going to see my dad again. For all intents and purposes, I am dead to District Seven. I'm shut out of home, and now have to go and make a new one all by myself. I don't know if you feel exactly the same, but…"

"No, I do. I get what you're saying. Although…"

"What?"

"No, forget it."

"Seriously, what? I won't mind."

She looks very much in two minds right now. Her eyes go to her shoes before coming back to meet mine.

"It's just…do you really think you'll have to do it _all_ by yourself?"

I don't respond, not daring to take the wrong interpretation. Flint seems to pick up on this, and changes tack accordingly:

"Look, Logan, I'm just gonna say this before I can stop myself: I miss my family for a long, long list of reasons, but one of the main ones is that they were the only people who actually understood what I was about. They…they didn't have to ask me what I meant when I said or didn't say anything, because they could just tell. So I could be myself around them all the time.

"What I'm trying to say is, now that my family's not around, and now that I'll never get to go back to them…" She pauses, as if having to make an adjustment in her system. "There hasn't really been anyone I can be myself with, and who gets me. Except you."

The last time I felt my heart stop was when I drowned. It feels like it's happened again, but for a very different reason.

"Seriously, in all the time I've been here, you've seen me at my ugliest, my moodiest, my emptiest…and you don't seem bothered by it at all. You're the one I know, without a doubt, I can talk to about real, deep, stuff like this. So…don't think you've gotta go out into this city alone, because wherever you are, I…I want to be there."

I feel like I've just swallowed a huge bottle of air, and I keep opening and closing my mouth like a goldfish. Flint chuckles to herself, and I just have to join in. Finally, though, I can form words of some kind:

"Well…good. Feeling's mutual."

_Oh _super_ work there, Thomas Logan. You sound like you've just closed a business deal._

I hasten to correct my mistake, but Flint pre-empts this with a finger to my lips. She has to stand on her toes to reach.

"Don't worry. I know what you meant."

She turns out to the city again, with a passing glance at the two lovesick Careers - they're admiring the view at last.

I do the same, only this time, as Flint and I stand mere inches apart, my right hand reaches down and meets her left one. Her fingers close around mine as soon as we touch, and I pray that she can't feel the frenzied beat of my pulse.

Wordlessly, we keep holding hands and watch the sky turn from grey to blue.

**Author's Note:**** Hope you enjoyed, and hey, even if you didn't, review anyway! :^D Many thanks.**


	32. Yours Faithfully

**Chapter Thirty-Two**

**Yours Faithfully**

**Author's Note****: Thank you bluespades and writer with no words (on Twitter, too!) for your reviews today. It's hard doing this, knowing the end of the story is j-u-s-t around the corner, but at the end of the day, I have to write it - it's been demanding me to ever since the idea came into my head :^)**

**Thorn**

I sneak out after dinner the night after that. Dan lets me in, and we lie facing each other on his bed, talking slowly about little things, big things, and nothing at all. It's like we've been doing this as a routine for years.

"You know…when I first saw you…I didn't know your name, so I…thought of you as 'Hot Silver Guy'."

When I say it, he looks like he has no idea what I could be talking about, but then he too remembers the chariot procession, and laughs out loud.

"Oh wow, I totally forgot about that. Oh jeez…" Still grinning, he buries his face in the crook of his elbow. "…That was so embarrassing, I can't even tell you."

"Really?" I say, still having to write out the words in my head so I can recite them. "But…you seemed so…confident."

"Yeah, emphasis on the "seemed"," he replies. "Still…'Hot Silver Guy', huh? Like the sound of that."

I smile. He smiles. We kiss. This happens repeatedly until I glimpse the time on his wall, and know, with a small plunge of my heart, that I have to get back to Intensive Care.

Apart from a necessary jump behind a corner to avoid an oncoming night attendant, I return to the room with no unwanted encounters. I shut the door as slowly and quietly as possible, keeping an eye on the curtains that hide Cato and his bed.

After creeping back to my own bed, I escape behind my curtains, doing a silent victory cheer to myself for having successfully snuck out two nights in a row. Feeling good about myself and my love life, all new and overwhelming and exciting, I settle underneath the covers.

The room is cool and dark, as it has been every day since I got here, but tonight I appreciate it much more. I feel like there's breathing space in the air, enough for my pulse to relax and my chest to open up, for the oxygen in my blood to reach every part of my body and my forehead to release itself from its usual frown.

In short, I feel calm.

I must fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, because the next thing I know, I'm being stirred out of a dreamless depth by the sound of whispers.

My head rises a little before I'm even really awake, and the first thing I feel is annoyance at whoever's disturbing me…

The voices are coming from across the room, and one of them is undoubtedly Cato's. His bedside lamp is on. Oh, for goodness sake. Of course the first night I actually get good sleep is the night he chooses to have a guest of his own over. I am highly tempted to suddenly pull back the curtains and do the inquisitive mute act just to scare the other person off, but recognising their voice immediately makes me draw back:

"I just can't believe how _dull_ it sounds, y'know?"

"C'mon, Clove," mutters Cato. "Being a 'Metal Fabricator' doesn't sound any different to the jobs back in Two. Think about it - making stuff like knives all day, every day, and getting to refine them exactly how you want 'em…doesn't sound that bad to me."

"Easy for you to say," retorts Clove with a tinge of envy. "You get to go into Security. At least in that field it's actually acceptable to beat someone up."

I hear Cato emit a low chuckle, which turns into a strained cough and wince. Clove sounds unusually concerned about this:

"You okay? Does it hurt to laugh?"

"Uh, just a bit," he says. "I stretch my face too much and it feels like someone's trying to pull it in two."

There's an uncomfortable pause as all three of us, I'm presuming, are reminded of how Cato got here in the first place. In a jauntier tone, he changes the subject quickly:

"Well, even if you don't like the new job, don't worry about it. We put our heads together, we can make a lot of money and quit this scene for Panem, home sweet home. It's just one hovercraft journey away, and once back, we'll be bigger celebrities than all the past Victors combined."

"As much as I love that plan," says Clove, sighing. "There's one major flaw: the secret agreement between Snow and the people here. Remember that? The Capitol's as good as gone, Cato, let's face it. We're stuck here."

"Look." I can hear him exhale shortly in frustration, before regaining his cold composure. "You think I don't know that? I was just trying to be optimistic. Nothing wrong with that. And hey…"

From behind my curtain I can hear shuffling on his mattress. Have they moved closer together? He continues:

"…You say we're stuck here? Way I see it, at least we're stuck together."

"That was a terrible pun," she says. But I can practically hear a smile edge in on the end of that sentence.

"Listen, I got to go, before someone catches me."

"They didn't catch you last night…"

_Last night?! How did I miss - oh yeah: Dan._

"Goodnight."

"Night," says Cato resignedly, before adding, "Sweetness."

_Oh My Skies. Is this happening? Did I really just hear that? Bleurgh._

My curiosity is reaching feverish heights now, so I peer through the gap in my curtains, just in time to catch Clove leaning over Cato and locking lips with him…back away, Thorn, just back away and pretend you never woke up. This is all some bizarre and very wrong dream that will all end soon.

...So why hasn't it?

"Come back tomorrow."

"What else am I going to do? Sleep?"

I hear the door open and shut. Now it's just me and him in the room again.

Well, thank goodness that's over - whatever _that_ was. Time for renewed sleeping.

Except another sound arises out of the silence, something I just can't ignore, because on the surface it appears to be a conceptual impossibility: it sounds like Cato's crying.

"What am I gonna do…what the hell am I gonna do…" he says to himself, barely audible. It's a very deep, strangled noise, like an injured lone wolf.

Instinct clearly takes over common sense at this point, as I pull back the curtains and step out on my feet, making my presence fully known.

I don't know why I do this.

His face snaps up from out of his hands, and the expression is a mix of shock and anger, amongst the clear salt tears. What's weird, though, is that because Cato's skin is synthetic, it doesn't seem capable of going red. His is just an ordinary face, leaking at the corners.

"Gah! What are you doing? Get away from me!" He automatically shields his face, an action rendered futile by the fact that I've already seen it. I stand, watching and waiting for him to turn to me again, arms by my sides.

"Damn you," he spits finally, lowering his arms. Apparently all that negative energy is now being channeled into a rant exclusively for my attention:

"_Weakness._" He says the word with immense disdain. "I _hate_ being seen as weak. That is not what a Career is. A Career is anything but that. Everything here is just so overwhelming, and…and I am in so much pain, _all of the time_, and…

"No! Damn it, no. Weakness isn't me; it's meant for people like you. And _why_ are you always here? You're like a freaking ghost, just haunting people wherever you go. Well _stop haunting me_, Thorn, 'cause I don't need this.

"Oh, and another thing - you haven't said one single word to anyone in here, even when you seemed to have plenty to say in the arena. I mean, jeez, you threw your whole life story at me, died at my feet, and now you seriously expect me to believe you got _nothing to say_? You're a joke, that's what you are. A fricking joke.

"And what, was I supposed to take pity on you back there? News flash, precious, I take pity on nobody. There is no way in hell you should be taking pity on me either. I -"

By this time, I've gradually moved inches further towards his bed, until I'm practically sitting on the side. And the reason he stops so abruptly is because I take hold of his right hand, the one that made it out of the arena uninjured. The one that still has his original skin.

I feel the heat of his large, strong hand radiate against my small, bony one. It stays completely immobile, because he has absolutely no idea how to react to what I'm doing.

As with Dan, all I have to do is look Cato straight in the eyes for my voice box to pair words with my brain all by themselves:

"None of us are weak. You are not weak. I am not weak," I say with a quiet but clear-cut intensity.

"But the difference between you and me, Cato, is that I don't want to fight any battles, because there are no more battles left for us to fight."

I don't know how I'm speaking so coherently, or with such fluidity, but the presence of speech alone is enough to make Cato just stare at me in total astonishment.

"We're out of the arena, Cato. The Games are finished."


	33. After The Rain Has Fallen: Epilogue

**Chapter Thirty-Three**

**After The Rain Has Fallen **

**(Epilogue)**

**Author's Note: ****Okay, thank you bbymojo, writer with no words, Awesome2345, shadesunrider13, and bluespades. You are a legendary lot, and without your support I would have much less incentive to write all thirty-three chapters of this story :^)**

**Be warned, this is a stupendously long chapter. I am so tired after having written it, but very happy. And a little bit sad. But mostly happy. Once more, I hope that you enjoy:**

**7 years and 4 months later**

**Ash**

"Hey," I call out into the apartment, twisting the keys out of the lock and letting my bag slump onto the floor.

"Hey," comes a reply from the cream couch in the middle of the room. Jackal is lying with her feet up on it, surrounded by papers and binders.

"Good day?" she asks as I immediately start changing out of my scrubs.

"Oh, y'know, the usual. I learnt how to de-marrow a bone. You?"

"I've been spending the last hour trying to memorise an entire book of legal terminology. Any more Latin and I might just die."

"Again?"

We both chuckle. Jackal, even three years after being introduced to the ancient language, in her first law lecture, continues to be perplexed by it…wow, three years? Time passes quickly. That was around the time I passed my fourth-year exams in Nutritional Science.

I toss my scrubs over into the laundry basket and continue the conversation from my room. My outfit for tonight is all steam-cleaned and ready on my wardrobe door.

"Oh, by the way, I _will_ get my rent cheque to you at some point, I just haven't got around to it yet."

"Well," I say, stepping into the navy dress. "As long as it's before the end of the week, that's fine. Just make sure you actually remember, otherwise Ms. Quango will be on our case again."

"Sure thing."

"Shouldn't you be getting ready?" I say, hopping out of the room with one heel on and the other in my hand. "The dinner starts at eight."

"What time is it now?"

"Quarter to seven."

"Oh jeez!" Jackal suddenly springs into action, leaping off the couch and letting papers fly everywhere. "I didn't even know!"

She disappears into her own bedroom. I roll my eyes and go to the bathroom to work on my face. I glance out of the window and take in the darkening sky. Soon the stars will come out, and I'll be able to see the ones I've named.

It was a present from Flint for my twentieth birthday: take a day trip to the astronomy institute on the outskirts of the city, and name up to five stars in the sky. I, of course, chose a little cluster of bright blue stars and named four of them Pearl, Azure, Raymn and Shwell. That way, whenever I look up, I can say hi to my family.

An elegant jingle resounding through the apartment distracts me, however, so I lean over to the wall and touch the "Answer (Private)" button. I carry on glossing over my lips as a familiar voice chirps in:

"Hello?"

"Hey Glimmer."

"Oh, Ash, good! Listen, I was just wondering if you could give me the name of the venue tonight - I had it up on the fridge but I think Marvel went and lost it."

"Sure. It's Amnesty House, the Vineyard Room, on the second floor…I think."

"Fabulous. Thank you. We'll see you there close to eight?"

"Absolutely."

"Okay." I hear a little squeal of excitement over the phone waves. "Ooh, Ash, isn't it so exciting?"

"I know…can't believe it. It's come around so soon."

"Oh, _totally_. See you there."

"See ya." I touch off, do a final once-over of my make-up, and move back into the living room.

"Jacks, come on, or we'll walk in halfway through the speeches."

"Five…seconds!" She hobbles out of her room, clad in a short silver dress, her hair down and wavy, trying to strap her shoes on and putting her earring sin at the same time.

"Okay," she says after a brief struggle, standing to attention. "Ready."

"Excellent," I say. We both head out of the front door, flicking the main switch as we go.

**Flint**

"Did you find it?" I ask from the dressing room table. I hear some shuffling, and then a short, sharp "ow!"

"You alright, babe?"

"Oh, don't worry about me," says Logan, walking in from the hall closet, rubbing his head. "I just had several cardboard boxes shower onto my skull, but hey, I found the present, so it's all fine."

"Great," I say, working the concealer brush over my cheeks and nose briskly. "How's my face?" I swivel on the chair to face him. He tilts his head appreciatively, pretending to give think long and hard.

"Perfect." He takes my hand and kisses the back of it. I laugh as he kneels on the carpet and starts kissing all the way up my arm, pushing back the sleeve of my dressing gown. I do have to bat him away, though.

"Hey, hey, down boy. We have places to go, remember."

"Well…perhaps later on, then," he grins, straightening the tie that he only brings out on special occasions. Just as well he has some items of clothing other than baggy pants, old shirts and heavy boots, otherwise that's all he'd live in.

It's part of a deal we made, you might say: he's promised to wear non-tree clothes on days off as long as I wear nothing black when I get home from work. It's working out pretty well so far.

"What are we thinking?" I ask as I finish with make-up and slide my dress off its hanger. "Central or Perpendicular?"

"Central, probably," replies Logan, pulling on his jacket. "The Perpendicular Line isn't as reliable."

"True." We've both had a lot of points clocked up on our tram cards over the years. It's a point per trip, and ten points later, you get one for free. It's not a bad system.

I have to get Logan to zip up the back of my dress after fumbling for five minutes. At no other time would I realise just how short my arms are.

While he does that, I take a second to look down and admire, for the hundredth time, the ring on my left third finger. It's made of Yeul minerals, so they always catch the light in a room.

I feel his arms settle around my waist as he rests his chin on my shoulder. Now we're both looking at the ring.

"Before you know it, we'll be the ones inviting people to our rehearsal dinner."

"Can't wait," I say with sincerity, before glimpsing the watch Logan got me for my twenty-fourth birthday last year. "Whoa-kay, we have to move. As in now."

"Oh, right then…present, keys, wallet…yes, we're good to go."

"Then let's," I say, patting his hand.

**Logan**

There are two means of transport in this city: walking and tram, although most of time you only walk in order to board a tram. The lines run all over the city, whether skimming the top floors of buildings, climbing hills and mountain roads, or powering along the ground at pedestrian level. And they're fantastically efficient, most of the time - I think in all the hundreds of trips to work, I've only been late twice.

It's nice to walk to our local stop - Clearlake Gardens - and feel the cool evening breeze settle over the city for the night. There are other small groups of people waiting, some of them dressed up to go somewhere, like we are.

As soon as we arrive, a tram clicks to a gentle halt. We nab two seats by the doors and start talking about who else might be coming:

"Ash and Jackal."

"I haven't spoken to Ash in weeks," I say, the thought suddenly occurring to me. "Wow, how did that happen?"

"It's called being a Clinical Nurse Specialist in training," replies Flint, shrugging. "It's a busy life. But good for her that she can take the night off and spend some time with friends, just relaxing and letting off some steam."

"Very true…who else? I know Meliss, Perdita and Arc will be there…"

"…and Auto, Tristan, Dyon, Mailo, Ember and Thresh."

"What about Kiko?" I ask as we pull into 'Glass Avenue'.

"He'll be there too, and his boyfriend, what's-his-name, uh…"

"Tab, I think."

"Oh yeah. Hey," says Flint, turning to me. "Did they invite Vixen?"

"…I don't know. I doubt they would have, I mean…unless they would. They wouldn't, would they?"

"I don't know. That's why I asked you."

"What about Marvel and Glimmer? Cato and Clove?" I ask. The tram stops at 'Bridgeview'.

"Uh...the first two'll be there. But Cato and Clove, well…" Flint trails off, and looks at me with a raised eyebrow. "We'll have to wait and see."

I'm about to ask whether or not we get to choose our own seats, when Flint's eyes land on someone else, and she starts waving and smiling.

"Rue, hey!"

"Oh, hey," says Rue, who's just stepped on. She smiles gleefully and moves over to us. It's a pretty packed tram, so I stand up and offer her my seat.

"Thank you, Logan. Well, isn't this nice?" she says, sitting down, smoothing out the creases in her light green dress. She's carrying a little blue box in her hands, adorned with a cream ribbon.

"What did you get them?" asks Flint, our own gift balanced on her lap.

"It's a potted plant from this really nice florist, just on the corner of my street. I would have got something bigger, but the student life means money's kinda tight."

"But it's going well, right?" I ask. Rue's training to be an environmental technician. "How's the second year shaping up?"

"Oh, it's good. We're learning how to collect samples of industrial wastewater and test them for pollutant traces."

"Sounds…like something I probably couldn't do," I say. She giggles.

"How about you, what did you get for them?"

"It's nothing exciting," replies Flint. "In fact it's thoroughly unexciting: a set of china mugs."

"That's nice," says Rue, out of her usual politeness.

"In our defence, though," I say, taking note of how many stops are left. "Thorn mentioned that they really needed a set of kitchen stuff like this. I think for the last few years they've been eating off a shared plate and taking turns sipping from the same cup!"

"Probably didn't bother them too much," quips Rue. We all smile, knowing how true that sounds.

"Ah, here we are," I say, catching sight of the grand cream building settled behind the riverbank gardens (which is also the name of this stop). "Amnesty House."

**Dan**

"Do you think we need to redo the seating chart again?"

I close my eyes and face my fiancée, only able to laugh at this point.

"What, two minutes before the dinner starts?"

"I know, I know, it's just I was taking a last look and I saw that we've put Ash next to Clove."

"What's wrong with that?"

"I'm not sure. It just…feels like it could be awkward."

"Thorn, it's Clove. She's going to create awkwardness no matter who she's put next to. And the whole reason we put Ash there is so that she wouldn't be stuck next to Vixen."

"Oh, of course, how could I be so dense?" She scribbles out a note to herself on the clipboard that says, "move A away from Cl?" I swear it hasn't left her side for the last two days. Thank goodness she's not a wedding organiser _professionally_ - she'd probably die of a stress-related illness after six months on the job.

"Why did we invite her again?"

"Because it's three days before our wedding," I say, putting an arm around her. "And we said it'd be nice to have all the tributes in the same place for the occasion."

"Yes…yes, you're right. I don't know why I keep forgetting that." She faces me and sighs. "Dan, I'm sorry. I'm being all neurotic again…"

"Hey, that's perfectly okay," I say, laughing. I pull her in close to me. "I wouldn't have wanted to marry you if you weren't at least a little bit crazy."

She tiredly chuckles at herself, leaning on me.

"And I wouldn't have wanted to marry you if you weren't as lovely a man as you are."

"Well, then it's just as well we do." I kiss her on the nose. She loves that.

"Can I do anything?"

"…Yes," she says after a moment's consideration. "You can unglue this clipboard from my hands."

I gladly take it off her, and she shakes out her hands like it's carrying a disease.

"Okay, okay, I'm done stressing, I really am. For tonight at least. Tonight is all about you, and me, and our friends."

"That's the spirit," I say, tilting my head back to look at the sky. It's only eight and already the stars are out in their twinkling crowds. I drink in the night air, wanting to bottle it up for future use.

"Who's that?" comes a voice from the steps below. "Oh, it's the soon-to-be-married couple!"

Thorn and I look at the first of our guests as they make their way up the white marble steps. Marvel and Glimmer are, in true District One fashion, dressed to perfection: he in a tailored black suit with expensive-looking cufflinks, and she in a long wine-coloured dress with a slit up her leg.

"Glimmer, Marvel, good to see you," says Thorn, hugging them both. Glimmer holds out a sleek box with brimming levels of delight.

"Shopping for presents is so much fun, sometimes I think I should transfer over to the gifting department in Marvel's company."

"Ah, but then your clients at the salon would miss you too much,' says Marvel, squeezing her arm.

"True," she says, trying to look humble. "I am _very_ popular with them."

"So, where do we go?" asks Marvel.

"Okay, um," begins Thorn, reciting this from memory. She gestures with her arms like a traffic controller. "We've got you on a guest list, so all you have to do is say your name and they'll let you in through the front doors. From there, go up the spiral staircase to the second floor, and someone should show you to the Vineyard Room."

"List, spiral stairs, second floor, vineyards, got it." He nods my way with a business-like smile and escorts Glimmer to the building. I lean over and whisper in Thorn's ear:

"I forget, are they living together now?"

"Yes, not too far from Cato and Clove, I heard."

"Well, whether those two'll even show up is anyone's guess," I say, looking out over the fading horizon of the river. "I mean, we got seats reserved and meals ready, everything except their RSVP note."

"We'll see what happens. As long as we're prepared for them, then that's all fine."

It's like taking the clipboard away from her has broken the spell of frantic worrying about all the little details of the wedding. Thorn's calmly watching the sky alongside me, breathing regularly. She closes her eyes and rests her head on my shoulder. I stroke her bare arm, thinking about how lucky I am to be here, as I am, with her, right now.

I mean, sure, we've had some ups and downs in the seven years since we both checked out of the clinic - from the stresses of integration in New Zurich (lesson one: the name of the city you live in) to learning how to be a couple.

It's funny, so many times I've had people like Ash and Logan and Rue come up and tell me how great and rock-solid my relationship with Thorn always is. We must be making it look easy without even realising, but it hasn't always felt easy, both of us can testify to that.

In the beginning we took a while to get past "the big obstacle" of our ability to commit to each other. There were a few angry words, some frustration, some tears, and a lot of long walks, but I'm proud of the fact that neither of us even mentioned walking out altogether. We stuck at it, and I like to think we've both got better as a result: I need to let Thorn know I'm reliable enough of a person to make a marriage run smoothly, and she's working to let go of the past, both in and before the arena.

It was also hard to get over the little things, like how Thorn would _freak out_ if I used her toothbrush by accident, and claim disaster had struck if I forgot to take out the recycling one morning. But at the end of the day, there's only so much she can do - it's how she is, and it's how we decided we worked best. She worries about the little things, and I worry about the big things, with comfort coming from both sides in any case.

I proposed four months ago, a couple of days after we were coming back from dinner. It sounds random, I know, but it had been raining that night, and a tram drove past us just as Thorn was next to a big puddle. She was all dressed up, looking real nice, and in two seconds was completely soaked. I thought she'd burst into tears and make a big fuss, but no. Instead, she took one look at me, threw up her hands, and started laughing that clear chiming laugh she has.

That's when I knew this was the woman I would spend the rest of my life with, and now here we are, just days before the big day itself. Maybe I should be more scared than I am now, but when I look at her like this, I just _know_ we're going to stay together like glue, for years and years and years.

Because we've accepted that although things will never be perfect, at times they'll get pretty close.

**Thorn**

I rest my head on Dan's shoulder, suddenly feeling tired before the dinner's even started. It's all this stress - all the planning, paying deposits for the caterers, the musicians, the venue, the seating charts and honeymoon arrangements…but knowing that all the hard work is about to pay off is enough to make me feel calmer.

I can't wait for New Tokyo - it's a city on the other side of Neutron, and to get there you have to travel for four days by express train. Dan and I put aside twenty percent of each of our pay cheques, for four months, to pay for the luxury cars. And once there, we've booked out a cabin in the forest-covered mountains, where for a full week we intend to do nothing but relax, swim in the lakes and go hiking. Since we moved in together five years ago, I've become almost as addicted to exercise as Dan, and he's an athletics coach at the New Zurich College!

I like to think it's done wonders for our relationship, routinely spending time together every morning, jogging in the park and along the streets, going for walks together, and swimming in the river when it's the hot season.

In the next ten minutes, the majority of our guests arrive, all bearing gifts: Meliss, Perdita, Ember, Auto, Arc, Dyon, Mailo, Tristan, and then Ash and Jackal. Dan said he's been looking forward to seeing those two, because on their tight schedules, we don't get to see either of them as much as we'd like to. Well, okay, I work in the same building as Ash, but we have different breaks and stay on different floors, so I can go for a whole week without so much of a glimpse of her.

"Go on inside - I think we're next to each other," I say to Ash. "We'll have catch-up chats."

"Absolutely a must," she responds, smiling all the way to the front doors.

Thresh shows up too. If we hadn't stayed as part of a network with the other tributes, we could easily have lost touch with him, but in a way I'm glad we didn't; once he's willing to get past monosyllabic sentences, you find he actually has some interesting things to say. Having said that, I still need to balance on the tips of my toes to reach him for a brief hug.

"Not many more to go now, are there?" asks Dan hopefully. All this hospitality is probably exhausting him.

The moment he finishes his question, Vixen gets to the top of the stairs, in a dark velvet dress and carrying a small box.

"Vixen. So glad you could make it," I say, almost as a default position. She gives a small but gracious smile and holds out the box.

"Thank you for the invite. I got you two a gift voucher for a place that sells sheets, down on Tanaka Boulevard."

"That's very kind of you. Dinner will be served soon, up in the Vineyard Room. Someone will show you the way."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

When she goes out of earshot, Dan chortles.

"Wow, talk about being overly civil," he says, patting me affectionately on the back.

"It just makes everything much simpler," I say, laughing a little to myself. And then a huge smile breaks out onto my face because Logan, Flint and Rue have just arrived.

"Hey, sorry we're a little late," says Logan as I practically tackle him with a hug. "The tram was packed, I swear it was going slower than usual."

"Hey, don't sweat it," says Dan, going for a man-hug. "Good to see you, and Flint, and Rue, hey! Haven't seen you for a while. Buried in the books?"

"Try test tubes and spreadsheets," she says wryly, handing over her gift. "But it's so good to be here and see you two."

"I can't believe it's happening already," says Flint. "I genuinely feel like it was just a few _hours_ ago that Thorn rang me up at midnight, screaming down the phone, 'WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!'"

"Oh yeah!" I laugh. "I remember that, and you were just like, 'Thorn…what the hell are you on?' That was a good day."

As I say that, I bump into Dan like one of the silver balls on a string I have on my desk at work. He bounces off me.

"Listen," he says, checking his watch. "It's past eight. We should get up there and get this rehearsal dinner on the road. Can't have the hosts late to their own event."

"Hmm," I agree, while squinting into the heightened darkness. "But what about…Cato and Clove?"

"Oh. Uh…you don't want to hang around for them all night. They probably won't show at all."

"Five minutes?" I suggest, saying "please" with my eyes. "Just five minutes, and then I'll join you? On the off-chance they do turn up, I don't want them holding a grudge against us for getting shut out."

"…Alright, five minutes. See you up there," he says, lightly kissing me on the lips.

"Want me to wait with you?" ask Flint and Rue at the exact same time. I smile and shake my head.

"Thanks, but I'm fine. Go on up and make yourselves comfortable."

They give small waves, and head through the doors. Dan takes a last look at me, and we nod and smile at each other.

And then it's just me on my own, out on the veranda, gazing at the view of New Zurich, with the buildings visible not by their outlines, but by their lights. Each building has panels in place on the roof, which take in the daylight and store it in energy cells, to be used for lighting in the evenings. Rue explained it all to me, as well as Jackal, who's said she wants to specialise in Environmental Law once she finishes her general legal secretary training.

At night I can't really tell which building is which, but in daylight I can point out where I work from far away, because it's the New Zurich clinic, the very place in which we all started out. I love my job, and I think they did very well to match me with it, even if it means Dr. Caplin is my boss whose psycho-teamwork jargon I have to decode every day.

However, I have my own consultancy room, complete with a plaque: Dr. Thorn West, Phd, Psych that got put up there only two years ago. And in that room, I feel like my own boss. I seem to be able to help whichever patient walks through the door, with whatever problems they have. If they want me to talk to them, I talk. But if they want to do all the talking and have me just sit back and listen, then I stay silent. I can work one side of the coin as easily as the other.

"Oh wow…you came." The words are out of my mouth before I can stop myself, once I see Cato and Clove reach the top step. I haven't seen them in person since the last tribute reunion, as hosted by the clinic, back in February. And I certainly haven't seen them dressed so well since…since the interviews in Panem. Which were an age ago.

"Yes," says Clove. "We're here. Sorry for not replying to the invite."

She doesn't say why. For a moment the three of us just stand still, not quite knowing how to proceed. But eventually I bite the bullet and lean in to hug both of them…_boy_ does it feel weird being this close to Cato, with the bionic limbs a noticeably stiffer than his natural ones. When I get off my toes, he holds out an envelope.

"For you and Dan," he says concisely.

"Oh, thank you so m-" I cut myself off when I see, through the thin white paper, the number written on the cheque inside. "Whoa…oh my goodness, this is too much, really…"

"No, keep it, seriously," he says, holding up a hand to pre-empt my refusal.

"We both got December bonuses last year," says Clove by way of explanation. "Call it compensation."

I don't even know what she means by that. Compensation for not keeping contact that much? Compensation for Cato killing Dan? Or is "compensation" just a word they use when they can't bear to use "generosity" instead? Either way, we won't have to worry about the wedding bills quite as much…or at all, really.

"Um, okay. Thank you, both of you. Do you, uh, want to come inside? Everyone else is seated."

"Sure," says Clove evenly, gathering up one side of her dress so she doesn't trip over her feet. I see she's wearing staggeringly high heels tonight.

The three of us walk to the entrance of Amnesty House. The doorman nods at me and ticks three names off the list. I lead the way up the winding staircase, until we reach the second floor.

"It's just that room over there," I say, pointing it out. "Please go in and find your seats, I just have to put this cheque somewhere safe."

"Thanks Thorn," says Clove, pulling the door open. Cato pauses before going in himself, taking time to look at me, and say with a sincerity I have never heard from him before:

"You look beautiful tonight."

"…Thank you."

And then the door swings shut behind him. I remember the cheque in my hands and go to the coat closet where all the other gifts have been stored safely away. When I come back, I take a second to look once more through the window by the stairs. The stars are out, so dazzling and yet so quiet at the same time: a special exhibition that rests in the background.

Somewhere out there is the galaxy that Panem lies in. Somewhere, in another world, another life, Katniss and Peeta, the only remaining tributes from all twelve districts, are still alive. Or at least one would hope. They appeared to be strong in their own ways before the Games, and during, so maybe they haven't caved into an addiction of whatever kind.

I can only pray that they'll be the ones to do something to change their world.

**The End**

**Bonus feature****: Trivia for **_**The Others **_**and**_** Etherised**_** (I know, I know, trivia for my own story? Slightly sad. Readers, just humour me here.)**

_**The Others**_

If the bloodbath had gone according to Suzanne Collins' original scene, out of the five protagonists, only Ash would have made it out alive.

Originally, Flint was going to be the one with the aneurysm, while Thorn would have met her demise getting skewered by Cato.

Logan, on top of being able to climb trees, can also make bows, arrows, axes, spears, and temporary shelter from whatever wood he can find.

Initially, Dan was going to die a more dramatic death - rather than a nudge with the hilt of his sword, Cato was going to lift Dan over his head and hurl him off the edge.

I only included "the pill" scene because it was a question that just kept bothering me from the moment I finished the book. It's surprising just how many sci-fi and fantasy works forget that inevitable fact, but it's important - how else were the female tributes going to cope with living in a forest for up to two weeks?

Originally, only Flint and Dan were supposed to share the cave on the first night, and then the next day, he would run into both Ash _and_ Thorn, after having fled from the site of Flint's body.

Logan's shoulder wound gets dressed in leaves while he's unconscious…Remind you of anyone?

Initially, Dan was going to get caught trying to steal more supplies from the Career base camp, causing him to make a run for it. The confrontation with Clove would never have happened.

Foxface knows it's almost 100% likely that Dan will be caught by the Careers, so she doesn't try to convince him not to go into the clearing. Notice that she also doesn't intervene to help him get away from the Careers when he _does_ get caught.

For a while I toyed with the idea of Thorn, having been stabbed in the shoulder, only playing dead rather than blacking out, because fear overtook her and survival became the first priority. But I wanted to leave it ambiguous until the next chapter as to whether or not she'd actually died.

The full name of Thorn's little sister is Savannah West.

Each of the tributes' talents are highly useful, but ultimately wasted, in a metaphor for the tragedy of young lives cut short by murder:

Ash tries to back-bend her way off the ground, only to fall down again and get killed by Cato.

Logan finds refuge in a tree, but gets killed on the first evening when he climbs down again.

Dan escapes the clearing by sprinting, but reaches a dead-end with the cliff edge.

Flint's sharp, rational mind means she can keep her cool and work to survive independently, but she loses that when Clove takes her by surprise.

Thorn may put up an excellent fight in the clearing, against three Careers, when she's trying to save Ash, but can't react quickly enough to avoid Clove's knife.

Having said that, there are, however, some moments when their talents come in incredibly handy…

Ash uses her flexibility to kick Marvel in the head when he traps her during the bloodbath.

Thorn rescues Dan from a tense situation involving Cato during training, by punching him in the nose.

Because of their respective running skills, Flint and Dan manage to escape the bloodbath with no injuries and decent supplies.

Had Logan not known how to climb trees as well as he did, his showcase score would have been much, _much_ lower, and he wouldn't have been able to get himself to safety (for a while) after the bloodbath.

_**Etherised**_

Some of you may not know this, but from the beginning I pictured Dan with a Southern drawl to his accent.

Thorn is the palest tribute amongst "The Main Five", whilst Ash is very tanned, having spent eighteen years in the sun.

Ironically, although Logan is the first of "The Main Five" to die, he's also the one who ends up with the least severe injuries.

'Leave My Body, 'Spectrum' and 'Lover To Lover' are all song titles from Florence+The Machine's latest album, 'Ceremonials'.

"That which does not kill you makes you stronger" is a quotation from the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

'If I Fell' is a 1964 ballad by the Beatles, from their album, 'A Hard Day's Night'.

'We Live' is a song about not taking life granted, by Superchick.

'Both Sides Now' is a ballad by Joni Mitchell.

'After The Rain Has Fallen' is a song by Sting. It actually includes lyrics like "take me to another life" and "take me to the stars,/Take me to moon/While we still have time."

Archidamus, Antigonus, Autolycus and Perdita are all characters in Shakespeare's _The Winter's Tale_.

Ward 841 refers to the number of words I was at in the chapter when I mentioned it for the first time.

**Btw I had literally no time to edit this, so if you see an error of any kind...that is why.**


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